Text - Blog Posts

Hey guys

Sorry I’ve been splotchy with my posts, though I’ve had motivations, I just don’t think if some of my work is “post worthy”

I overthink things a lot, so I get caught in a spiral of “Everyone is going to like this!” and “They won’t like it, it’s ugly, don’t post it.”

I want to post more, but also having *checks followers* 28 of you (maybe more). I’ve never gotten any asks, and would love to talk to some one.

I’ll take submissions, I just can’t take commissions. I like people’s interaction in blogs I follow, 👉👈 so maybe I could do the same? I dunno-

Happy (Late) 8/8, I’ve got art but it’s not finished and lost motivation from thinking it’s ✨Stupid✨

So, there's apparently research coming out now about microplastics being found in people's bloodstreams and the possible negative effects of that and I feel the need to get out ahead of the wave of corporate sponsored "be sure to recycle your bottles!" or "ban glitter!" campaigns and remind everyone: It's fishing nets. It's fishing nets. It is overwhelming fishing nets It always has been fishing nets. Unless regulations are changed, it will continue to be fishing nets. The plastic in the ocean in largely discarded nets from industrial fishing. The microplastics are the result of these nets breaking down. The "trash islands" are also, you guessed it. Mostly fishing nets and other discarded fishing industry equipment. Do not allow them to continue to twist the story. Do not come after disabled people who require single use plastics. Do not come after people using glitter in art projects and makeup. These things make up a negligible amount of the issue compared to corporate waste, specifically in the fishing industry. Do not let them shift the blame to the individual so they can continue to destroy the planet and our bodies without regulation.

Symbolism of Pure Vanilla and Shadow Milk:

Okay I was scrolling and it suddenly hit me why I felt way more attached to the dynamic that Shadow Milk and Pure Vanilla had then say Dark Cacao and Mystic flour It’s because of the freaking double meaning to their primary roles as a Jester and King. (And me having the cultural knowledge to get any secondary meaning between their roles unlike the other two ancients at the minute).

So in the modern media and more frequent interpretation of the royal court the Jester was there to entertain, which is how SM is introduce to us, but in some cases it wasn’t their only job in court. They could responsible for bearing bad news to the King but also being one of the few people in court who could publicly mock and talk freely to him, so long as it seemed funny. This reflects on the actual game as Shadow Milk is the only one be it positive or negative that will not speak to Pure Vanilla without some form of formality.

While yes PV is friends with the other ancients there’s still a formality between them due to their ranks and roles even with Gingerbrave and Co they’re still a bit formal to him as he’s their elder. Shadow Milk as his elder in age but equal in terms of power (due to possessing the same soul jam), is the only one who talks frankly to him.

As for bearing bad news (yes this is relative but makes sense in context) SM is the one albeit in a very manipulative and disingenuous manner informs PV truth is only relative to the individual or group but is made up of lies varying from meaningless to meaningful, and that even he will lie as some situations a sweet lie is better than the bitter truth.

SM both directly and indirectly aided in PV’s decision making which on occasion for some Jesters was their role albeit this was extremely uncommon. Which ended up with the Truthless Recluse and eventually Compassionate.

All this making their roles as the Jester and the King even more intertwined than just a cosmetic choice.

Anyway Inky signing this post off!

so i was writing a little au and here stone confesses his feelings to ivo, and clearly to confess your feelings you got to admit them

so here's the question

in canon, DOES STONE REALISE HE'S IN LOVE WITH ROBOTNIK???? if im taking version that they met and grew attached to each other at work: did stone one day just get hit with knowledge that he likes ivo so he started to do all that gay shit OR he thinks he just does regular employee-platonic-bro-bestie things but they come out as romantic gestures because he's in love??

Alterhuman is an umbrella term, not a synonym!

Nowadays, I see a lot of folks using alterhuman as a catch-all for not being human. While nonhumanity certainly falls within alterhumanity, alterhumanity does not exclusively refer to species nor is it synonymous with nonhuman identities (ex: therianthropy).

Alterhumanity includes but is not limited to:

Fictionfolk: An umbrella term that encompasses all individuals of fictional origin or hold a personal connection to fiction. This includes fictionkind, fictives, fictionhearted individuals, folks with fictional hearthomes, imagithropes, etc.

Otherhumans: Individuals whose species is human but not in context to humanity as we see it in its current state. Some examples include human fictionkind and archaeosapient early humans or neanderthals.

Heartedness: A broad experience in which an individual may not identify as someone or something, but has a deep, personal connection with that person, place, or thing. This includes folk who are otherhearted/otherkith/synpaths, talehearted folk, and folk who have hearthomes (fictional or not).

Archetropy: An identity in which one heavily identifies with or generally experiences an archetype, trope, or pre-established character model in a way that is central to their identity.

Plurality: The state of more than one person within a body. That said, not all who are plural may relate their plurality to alterhumanity.

Dæmonism: The practice of communicating with one's internal dæmon, a thoughtform stemming from one's subconscious. A dæmon is also given a sentient form, typically a nonhuman animal of sorts. Can be considered as a form of plurality but depends on the individual and their relationship to their dæmon(s).

Soulbonding: A practice in which an individual forms a personal bond or connection to a fictional character and communicates with them from their headspace or soulscape. Can be considered as a form of plurality but depends on the individual and their relationship to their soulbond(s).

Furry Lifestylers: A subset of the furry community whose position in the subculture carries into their daily life. Some members have described it as "furry as a way of life", in which being a furry is inseparable and intrinsic to oneself.

I have alterhuman terms of my own to take into account as well:

Archaeosapiens: Individuals whose alterhuman identity is intrinsically rooted in prehistory, antiquity or mythic accounts of history. Although I don’t use it for myself anymore, I can say as the person who coined it that species is not central to archaeosapience; it is the distinct connection to one’s time that’s central. Anyone of any species can be archaeosapient.

Ontoplanarity: In referral to ontoplanar, which describes individuals who originate from planes and realities outside of this Earth. While one could relate this term to alienkind and spacekind, ontoplanar focuses one’s own point of origin rather than one’s species. In that regard, anyone of any species can be ontoplanar.

There’s also human alterhumans who aren’t specifically otherhumans. The idea that humankind as we know it is completely alienated from alterhumanity is a misconception, likely tying into the assumption that “alterhumanity = nonhumanity”.

I originally discussed this in the Alterhuman (Tumblr) Community but I felt as though I should make this information publicly available, especially with how the term has been sifting around lately. I’m not the first to bring this up, far from it even. If anyone who’s learned something from this wants to know more, here’s some posts to check out:

The finalized coining of the term Alterhuman/AHPI (x)

Aster’s discussion on alterhuman as an umbrella, particularly its conflation with otherkin (x)

Rani’s discussion on umbrella terms in the community, addressing erasure in folks’ usage of both alterhuman and fictionfolk (x)

Rani’s explanation on the difference between nonhuman and alterhuman as terms (x)

A thread of terms and experiences that tie into the alterhuman community (x)

I understand being excited to find a community that speaks to you. We’ve all been there!

That said, inclusive language is important. Even more so when the terms we use were already inclusive to begin with.

I think the best example I’ve seen to address this phenomenon is Aster’s example referring to queer and its usage. Queerness is vast. It is not synonymous with one specific experience in the LGBTQ+ community. That much is understood online.

In the same vein, alterhumanity is just as vast. It is not synonymous with nonhumanity, be it therianthropy or otherwise. It can be alienating for your peers to see it centralized as that experience alone. Alterhumanity is an ocean of possibilities and perspectives that should be recognized alongside nonhumanity. I encourage folks to look at it in full, if not use terms that specifically highlight what you experience instead of framing alterhumanity as only that experience.

Paradox of perspectives

An essay about a variety of my arthropod experiences, and how I go about linking / provoking temporary cameo shifts.

I do not talk about my arthropod experiences much. I am arthropod-hearted, that much is very blatant about me from what I study to how I spend my time and what I love to read about.

I do not consider myself a spider. I could have. A lot of my experiences line up with the average therian; I feel shifts, I've felt phantom limbs, once or twice, similarly few to how my bird phantom present themselves when I don't coax them out, I've had a similar "rightness" to some kinds of spiders (and a few other arthropods) that roadrunners, and things that look like roadrunners, elicit in me. However, I am not a spider. I'm a few feet to the left of being a spider, and if I squint and tilt my head, perhaps I could have been one, or perhaps have been and that's a bit of leftover from that time past, if souls exist, but I am not one, not in the way I am a bird. And while I would choose to have feathers if I could, I am fine with now observing spiders as a separate entity to myself, more than a reflection of what I should be.

However I still know what it feels like, to be a spider. In fact, it is from this experience that I started to amuse myself to see if I could also provoke shifts from other arthropods I enjoyed learning about, a stepping stone into shapeshifting as a amateur hobby. I'm not sure in what box to display that spider. Not a kintype. Not a linktype, as it is the only one of my arthropod experiences that was not voluntary. A little bit more than what's typically expected of a heart-type. If I got fancy, I could call it an antea-type, a past life still leaving a mark, but I am not very spiritual, so that feels shallow as well. I suppose it will stay "the spider".

There's few arthropods around. Not none, I've talked to a few, most notably a cockroach, a few moths, a few wasps, at least one centipede, and a variety of chimeric insectoid monsters. A few spiders, as well I think, but never enough to compare my experiences to. I've found it unsatisfying, to try and seek out arthropod experiences, as a lot of it tends to simply stay in the clear water of the experience : rudimentary "i looked at that picture, and it felt right", or "i felt wings, and it was similar to a moth". Not that it's a bad, incorrect way to experience it, but it doesn't tend to leave my curiosity sated. So here are all the notes I've had about being a variety of arthropods, from my spider, to the ones I shed into to my leisure, to others like me who like unnecessarily long descriptions of Being.

First of all, title drop. Why a paradox of perspective? To me, the red line between all earthen arthropods (and affiliate) I've been is that alien feeling. Yet the world very much is not! It is all things I can still interact with, still find if I try. Noemata of being a spider involve a complex, labyrinthine world of crossing shadows and movement. Noemata of being an endoparasite involve warmth and pulsating rhythm. The centipede was mostly touch and speed and grasp in lush-moist hidden places. When I try to depict them, to a human scale, I easily end up with fantastical worlds. The rotten vale of Monster Hunter, for the filarial worms that migrate through the body. More decayed, but I feel in it that pulsating warm rhythm, although perhaps there are better analogues. Pandora and it's web of vegetation are a human-sized version of any small woods, when you're a half a centimeter long predatory beetle. Being something so small does feel alien, when I am now part of the megafauna. Every snapshot I get, when applied to human size, becomes gargantuan and unfathomable to see on earth.

Maybe that's one reason why they're so rare. How do you realize you were something so small, when it feels so grandiose. It's hard to drop to your knees, angle your eyes, and realize your Yggdrasil was never even the biggest of it's kind. It is why I love becoming insects, though. It has a way of making you treasure the small.

When it comes to being a spider, I can only approximate. I have not chosen, so I must piece back what I was given. It was also shared with a long gone person who shared my mind, so I can only keep what belonged only to me. Some pieces were rather vague. I could not explain why I know I should have venom. I just knew it was how something like I was, killed. Perhaps I would not even, at the time, have known that's what it was, really. Simply a part of life. The sun lifts in the sky. Water is wet. My chelicerae pierce and liquefy. It wasn't really even the most important part of the hunt for what I was, just the finale. My hunt was not making something delicate and vicious that would ensnare for me, nor was it a brutal rushdown. I was mechanical. A biological bear-trap. Becoming More Spider meant patience to an inhuman degree (although inhuman is to be expected), it meant reactive more than proactive. I only had bribes, but it was almost meditative, to be a spider, and I quite liked it.

In symbiosis with that other-mind, I could feel his phantom book lungs (like gills upon my ribs), and the phantom pattern of his eyes upon my face (not that much vision. shades mostly, clear and dark. movements.). Long, grasping limbs to each side, set apart like a jaw (strong, sensitive, like a gun-trigger). Able to fold itself flat, to become the wall it stands on (pneumatics of inner workings, fluids in and out). Whatever it was, it liked shade and coolness and moisture. It disliked movement above it, but did not exactly flee it, it simply hid better and waited. It could be fast, when it was time, but for the most part, it was simply silent.

It's a bit hard, to make a whole from bits, especially something i'm not all the time. With being a bird, I can simply reflect on myself anytime, and that is simply what I am. With the spider, I kind of had to vivisect bits and pieces when and where they happened, and that was kinda all, unless I provoked more of it, which is what I ended up doing. I played dress up with a variety of creatures that felt similar enough, to see what felt right. I tried tailless whip scorpions, but while the grasping of the forearms were right, and Feeling more than any other sense was too, the long thin whips were not quite something I'd felt before, and it lacked that inherent Venom that my brain informed me I should have. Huntsman and wolf spiders were fun. So fun that I kind of hoped that would be it, for a long time. They were something very interactive to be, perhaps not as much as a jumping spider, i've never tried that, but a lot more of a rush than mystery spider. But that feeling of being something fast wasn't right, and the feeling of grasper, while more right with Heteropoda, did not fit wolf spiders at all. I actually realized the most likely culprit pretty recently, while watching the woods near my house. There is in fact all matters of little lethal biological bear traps littered all over the flowers, like decadently dressed death angels for bees and flies alike : Flower crab spiders. I adore them, now that I know where to look for them. I've lived near these woods all my life, yet I'd never spotted them. Thomisus onustus, Synema globosum, Runcinia grammica, Heriaeus hirtus and probably more i've not met yet. I don't quite think my mystery spider is one of them, but almost. If I had to guess, it was some sort of Xysticus, or something analogous. A ground crab spider. I might be wrong, this not an exact science, it's hard to interpret what could very well be figments of my mind. But I am quite satisfied with that answer, at the moment.

So that's arthropod number 1 I've been, the one I've been the most and the one who taught me how to shapeshift.

It takes me some time to manage to decent attempt at something I've never even slightly been. It's easy to have parts. I can feel a wasp's ocelli, a dragonfly larva's mandible or a pair of earwig wings just fine, as long as I have references for it. It's just a matter of visualization, really. I draw as a hobby. I see provoking a shift in myself just like drawing, just with sensations. Take a mantis's raptorial limb. Pull up an anatomy drawing. My upper arm becomes a coxa. The elbow, the trochanter, then the forearm, the femur. My hand fuses, and becomes the tibia. I cannot fold it right, but I can feel the weight of the spines along the ridges, I can feel where it should fold and lock together like well oiled machinery. Then the tarsus, which currently feels like it should erupt from my middle finger, feeling strangely appropriate to type with. Too short, in a human body, but similarly bendy, lacking the two hooks at the end. It's a vague one, and as I am writing this, I can simply shake it out and come back to a more neutral state of human-bird confusion, a more comfortable mix when it comes to operating a keyboard.

It tends to become tricky when it comes to adding everything up. I can have a mantis's arm, but then I must maintain it, and add it's head, with it's complex set of mandibles, of antennas, of eyes-made-of-eyes. One limb needs to become six, and my body starts to glitch. A bird, a tetrapod, is already somewhat complex, my human arms are both wings and bird feet analogue. What's an analogue to that third pair of limb, where do they go? I tend to prefer to lie down when I figure out how to optimally place and draw those feelings, eyes close, so my human feelings do not overlap too much. Even better in the dark. Once it's set, i can then usually trigger it again later, and it'll put itself in place naturally.

It was easier with something as simple as the Filaria worm, although highly dependent on me doing... not much. I did not really need to focus on phantoms then, just on the mind. The mind is not something you can easily find reference from, and to be honest, I would say whatever I feel is most likely a simulacrum of what it's like, after all I do not stop having human neurons during the experiment. But that's not really the point, is it, the point is just that it's fun. The Filaria, amusingly enough, I provoked out of loneliness. I wondered what it must feel like, to be something that is never lonely, because it lives inside something else, constantly surrounded by both it's peers and the thing that nourishes it. It was mostly sensations, what I felt, strangely easy to slip into, perhaps because I have experience with writing parasites for myself.

Back when I was not medicated, I would see the world breathe, sometimes, pulse and writhe, walls tensing and releasing, floor moving beneath my feet. The nematode felt something similar, in my mind. Warmth all around, each heart-beat a pulse, world around you contracting flowing writhing singing. Many-many others around you. Forward, without reason. Not much with reason, simply following the song. It is honestly one of the most pleasant shifts i've ever had. No fear. Nothing to flee. Death is simply a possibility of the world that also nourishes you. You cannot escape it, as there is no other world to escape too, and you are simply here, and you must go forward, and that is all. So no fear. It changes nothing. Blissfully nihilistic. The only glimpses I get are of the stage inside the body, perhaps another would be a different tune, but I'm satisfied with what I saw.

I'd say the mind will be easier to reach for writers than for visual artists. You can cross reference, after all, since I do consider I am channeling a soul, I do not find it particularly less interesting to build that mind through readings of scientific papers that, too, try to imagine what it is like to be something else. To go back to the mantis, I suppose I chose an easy one for me to be. It is once again something that stays in wait. However, it is a lot more active, a lot more visual, than my spider. How would that feel? What colors would I see? Where are my sensors to the world in that body? What would I fear? What would I seek? That's when having the body down gets handy, to me. I simply provoke it, sometimes I do little rituals, to tie it to certain accessories or knick knack, as I find it helps me focus. Shapeshifted, feeling the foreign limbs and foreign sensations, I find it easier to slip into a foreign mind. Everything becomes new. The woods near my house are discovered for a thousandth time with new eyes. The spider sought out moisture and shade, and silence. The centipede sought warms, long coiled body spanning meters, then a hunt, but everything was too small, so it waited, touch-tasted, inquisitive. Perhaps the mantis would seek an elevated zone, with luxurious foliage to hide itself, and would observe. I should try it sometimes.

Perhaps my experiments with arthropods will help some new people attempt more impermanent forms of linking, quite frankly i do not think it is the time spent that makes the serious of an identity, but it is hard even for me to separate the two sometimes, with how tied they were in old forum culture (not even touching on the idea of, gasp, voluntary identity and experiences being worthy). Honestly, I recommend trying it because it is fun. So a little challenge to readers : I would love for you to pick something, become it, and come back to tell me about it. Bonus points if it's some flavor of arthropod-like. Good luck!

Therians, Otherkin, & Alterhumans: I am BEGGING you to credit artists when you use their work for memes, moodboards, stimboards, icons, banners etc. (anything)

It is the minimum we should be doing when I know most of us aren’t even checking to see if the artists are even ok with using their works in this way.

I promise you it doesn’t actually take that long to find the creator most of the time, and if you cant find it- maybe someone else can or maybe don’t use it. “Couldnt find the creator” “credit to artist” etc, is NOT viable

www. the way the sun shines through the leaves dot com

Having the weirdest combination of phantom shifts tonight. It's a mix of mule and jaguar. The face is more of a mix, but the ears are seperate. I have four ears (six counting the physical human ears).

Quick sketch trying to show what's going on... this is very strange.

Shout out to those of us who awakened as adults! I didn't realize I'm a bison until I was almost 18 and I didn't have my fictionkind awakening until I was 21

did anyone get like phantom shifts (or any at all) when they where younger and didn't know what they were or really question them until you learned about being nonhuman/alter human? a LOT in my childhood makes sense now learning I'm not a human

Werewolves & Chronic Illness

Let's talk about chronic illness, and how it relates to my experience of being alterhuman.

I was born defective. I won't specify what conditions I have exactly, for privacy purposes, but they primarily cause pain and fatigue. I have had them for my entire life, and will likely have them until I die. I had them when I first started exhibiting alterhuman behaviours as a child. I had them still when I figured out what I was 2 years ago.

The way I view my identity as a werewolf has been deeply shaped by my relationship to chronic illness. The depictions of being a werewolf that I am most drawn to, and the ones that I myself write, are characterised by pain and body horror. Where the transformation takes some kind of toll on the body.

My relationship to this body I inhabit has been ruled by pain and limitation. The idea of a seamless and easy physical transformation is unthinkable to me. When life within flesh has always meant compromise, why would this be any different?

When I was young, I saw the film “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”. The werewolf in this film is effectively chronically ill BECAUSE of lycanthropy. Their symptoms worsen around the full moon. Their transformation near the end of the film has stayed with me forever. The creative team chose to depict a gaunt, almost miserable looking creature so far from any depiction of a werewolf I had seen before or since. It was the first time I truly saw myself in a creature like that.

I took one look at that dishevelled, long limbed, scarred creature, and instantly felt a connection.

My condition requires regular hospital treatment. Without it, my body would eventually destroy itself. The timeframe for this treatment? Roughly once a month. Sometimes lining up as the week before the full moon. Another parallel between the cycles of being a werewolf, and the cycle of being chronically ill. Just like my bestial instincts, my physical health waxes and wanes. Too much stress or physical activity, and my body has to rest. Or hibernate.

Which brings me to my other point. My existence as a werewolf, and as a chronically ill human, don't just mirror each other. They overlap at times. Am I emotionally riled up because of the full moon approaching, or because my condition is due for treatment? Is the pain I feel in my bones a need to get down on all fours and stretch, or the side effect of my body's dysfunction? My illness and my alterhumanity sometimes speak the same language. Given the choice, I prefer to see them as complementary.

Two sides of the same coin.

If I was born chronically ill, then perhaps I was also born a werewolf. In the battle of nature versus nurture, perhaps alterhumanity was simply my destiny.

Noemata: Background, definition, and use

noema (plural noemata) - noun From Ancient Greek νόημα (nóēma, “concept”, “idea”, “perception”, “thought”).

1. (philosophy) The perceived as it is perceived 2. (philosophy) That which is perceived in the noesis/noema duality 3. (rhetoric) An obscure speech or a speech that only yields meaning upon detailed reflection⁽¹⁾ 4. (otherkin community slang) Knowledge about oneself, one’s kintype, or the life of one’s kintype

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Almost from the moment I joined the community I lacked a word to describe the distinct images, knowledge, and ‘memories’ that would pop into my head in relation to my psychological kintypes. I was (and still am) very adamant that these kintypes were not past lives, and yet I had many experiences that were similar enough that I, at the time, begrudgingly referred to them as my “kin memories”. Upon sharing my reluctance around using this terminology, I found that many others – both psychological, spiritual, both, and neither – were experiencing the same lexical gap. So when I set out to find a word to bridge that gap, my intentions were to make it as broad and inclusive as physically possible.

It took a day or two of intense googling, before I found the word ‘noema’, which is a very rare word in daily speech, and is almost exclusively reserved for one specific branch of philosophy. It has several overlapping definitions (the three main ones listed above, followed by the community’s use), but the one that particularly caught my attention was: “The perceived as it is perceived.”

Now, fair warning, I took a philosophy class in high school that I haven’t been able to shut up about since, so when I saw that rather cryptic definition, it was of course love at first sight. How I’ve come to interpret “the perceived as perceived” after reading a some analyses of Husserl’s philosophy, on which it is based, is as a subjective truth - a noema is something that is real, not because we can prove its existence by scientific measurements, but which is simply real because a person experiences it as such. When discussing noemata in the context of memory-like experiences in the otherkin community, it is thus irrelevant if they’re “real” in any objective way, and the only thing that matters is that the individual experiences them as real.

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To define is to limit, so with the purpose of the word in mind (to be useful for everyone who felt the lexical gap) I had to be very careful with my phrasing. In my very first attempt at a definition I described a noema as “something in between a memory and an intuition, knowledge that is inherent but has been forgotten/has to be recalled.”⁽²⁾ This is not a definition that I stand by now as I find it too limiting and too focused on memory-like noemata.

In my next post⁽³⁾ about the topic, I didn’t attempt to define it so much as clarify a few things: A noema is not a “kin memory with a psychological explanation”, nor does it have to have any of the qualia of a memory. Any knowledge that has been gained about one’s kintype can be called a noema, including detailed episodic memories and knowledge as simply as your kintype’s eye color or the layout of their house.

In my final attempt to define it, when prompted to because Kiera wanted to add it to their dictionary, I described it as “inherent knowledge you have about your kintype. This may include memories, things you experience as memories but likely aren’t, or general knowledge about your looks, life, habits, or surroundings. Noemata may have a psychological or spiritual basis, may be a mix of the two, or may have unknown origins.”⁽⁴⁾ This is a definition I stand by to this day, though it still prompts some further questions and discussions.

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For starters, why did I include the word ‘inherent’ in that definition? It’s a word I’m very fond of, and you’ll often see it pop up in my long-form writings. I use it to mean ‘essential’, 'core’, and sometimes 'permanent’ or 'natural’/'instinctual’. In other words, for something to qualify as a noema it has to be ingrained with your kintype, one way or another - so things you only know because it was taught to you (for example, statistical facts about an animal species) would not count as noemata, but things you discovered on your own would. Even here we run into grey areas, though, because if a piece of knowledge was revealed to you in, say, a dream, would that count as a teaching or a discovery? Or would knowledge you didn’t discover through introspection, but instead felt compelled to seek out and study, count? I can’t say, and I think it’s up to the individual to decide if they want to call something like that a noema or not.

Next, I feel it important to mention that the examples listed in that definition (“memories, things you experience as memories but likely aren’t, or general knowledge about your looks, life, habits, or surroundings”) are only examples. There are other ways to experience noemata, for example (again, only examples and not the be-all-end-all of the word’s coverage) as precognition, visions of a parallel life, feelings about certain things or characters, and confabulations. However, there is one tentative exception: I have not created the word with consciously created scenarios in mind. If you intentionally decide that your kintype has red hair (instead of going off a gut feeling that they have red hair), I would not count that as a noema. Again, with room for grey areas such as OCkin, who have created a character and later come to realize that that character is their kintype.

Though the word has mostly found use as a stand-in for 'memory’ among psychological otherkin, that by no means covers all the ways in which it can be used, and in the past year I have seen it used more and more frequently by nonhumans and alterhumans regardless of the cause of their identity. My intention with introducing the word to the community was always to fix the lexical gap, and as such everyone who feels that gap can use the words 'noema’ and 'noemata’.

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Sources: 1. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/noema#English 2. https://aestherians.tumblr.com/post/181836451574/ 3. https://aestherians.tumblr.com/post/190929635719/ 4. https://www.beyondhumanity.net/alterhuman-dictionary/dictionary-n

Hi this is a positivity post regarding alterhuman diet dysphoria versus actual biology

(unless you already know these things)

To herbivore nonhumans who don't want to/can't do a vegan or vegetarian diet but feel dysphoric about being able to digest meat:

Herbivorous animals are not unable to digest meat.

Animal matter is actually easier for a body to process than plant matter, and herbivorous species need very complex digestive systems in order to support their lifestyles. This is why cows have four stomachs; why horses practically go into critical system failure if they get even a little bit sick. Animals that live mostly by grazing actually still do need nutrients that carnivores and omnivores get through their natural diets, which is why farming supply stores sell salt licks for animals. In the wild herbivores will quite often find ways to sneak some meat into their diets by eating bugs or small vertebrates, if you didn't already know about the fun fact of deer eating baby birds. "Obligate herbivore" meaning an animal that can ONLY physically digest plants is not a real ecological term the way "obligate carnivore" meaning animal that can ONLY physically digest meat is, though you might see it in other usages (i.e., referring to an animal that relies on a plant-based diet for all of its nutrients).

If a wild deer was given access to human society, they would probably not opt for veganism for connection with their true species; they would more likely appreciate having a way to get sodium so easily. This isn't to shame anyone who does choose a vegan/vegetarian diet for species euphoria reasons, but more to reassure folks who can't, you aren't less of an herbivore.

To carnivore nonhumans who feel dysphoric that their body can't digest raw meat like wild carnivores can:

It can!

The reason you don't want to be eating raw meat like a wolf or stoat or monitor lizard is because you will get sick or you will contract a parasite, which might sound like just a different reason to feel disconnected from your species, but here's the main two things:

1. The actuality is that wild wolves and stoats and monitor lizards DO get sick and contract parasites. This is often how wolves and stoats and monitor lizards die in the wild and why ones in captivity, being fed parasite-free meat and having illnesses treated, live longer. There are raw meats you can eat safely, you just have to know where they're sourced from and that they're guaranteed not to have risks! That's why sushi is a thing, and why people say you can technically eat raw cut (not ground) beef but not pork or chicken. Cooked meat is also often tastier and easier for the body to process (cit.: Grug et al. 780,000 BCE) so that's why humans have loved their medium-well steak since they came up with it. And 2. wild predators are "able to eat raw meat" mostly because they killed it, so it's fresh and hasn't been sitting around able to pick up bacteria, the way raw meat you get at a grocery store would have. This is why a lot of prey animals have a "play dead" defense mechanism: most predators do not want to eat something that's already dead, because it might get them sick.

If a wild owl was given access to human society, they would probably not desire only the rawest of meats for connection with their true species; they would more likely appreciate having access to food that had all the pathogens cleaned and/or scorched out of it.

Shoutout to adults in the kin community, whether you also identified as kin from a younger age or not. So often this identity is seen as a phase or something only younger people identify as, but there are those of us out here in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and older living our lives and existing out in the world.

To those of us who grew into it, to those of us that grew with it, I see you and love you.

On Sapience, Longing, and the Lack Thereof

Written by Max on August 12th, 2024.

So I was at Othercon 2024 this past weekend - and like many who attended, I came out the other side with a new piece of my identity to chew over. This essay is me chewing over my thoughts on archaeosapience, as it connects to my velociraptor paleotheriotype, and why I genuinely don’t feel like I fit the label.

One of the panels I attended and thoroughly enjoyed was “Not Humans, Still People: How Inhumanity Interacts with Personhood,” by Goratrix bani Tremere of the Draconic Wizard Workshop and Chaiya Askari-Vykos of the Treehouse System. During the panel, Goratrix and Chaiya argue that personhood is different from humanity, defining personhood as, essentially, sapience - the ability to understand oneself, to make rational choices, to comprehend the world in not only physical ways, but also the abstract and symbolic. All humans are people, but not all people are humans - nonhuman personhood is experienced by many, many alterhumans, and this is an important distinction to keep in mind.

Another panel I adored, presented by Sivaan of Candlekeep, was “Archaeosapience: To Awaken as Ancient in a Modern Age,” in which he discusses the label and the intricacies of his own experience as an archaeosapien. Once again, nonhuman sapience is a key feature here - as Sivaan writes in xyr coining essay, “[t]he “sapience” in archaeosapience exclusively refers to our awareness of our existence as ancient beings,” as opposed to an inherent connection with the species Homo sapiens. Archaeosapience does not require one to be human.

An archaeosapien is defined as “an individual whose alterhuman or nonhuman identity is intrinsically rooted in prehistory, antiquity or mythic accounts of history.” And funnily enough, here lies my personal disconnect with the term, even though I identify as a velociraptor - a prehistoric animal well known to be extinct. To experience archaeosapience requires personhood, requires sapience, an understanding of oneself as an ancient being. And this is one thing that my theriotype utterly lacks.

Now, I’m not saying that I lack sapience. I am a person, one who reads and writes and learns about the world around me. I also identify as human, separate but intertwined with my personhood, and my humanity is as important to me as my animality. Both of these core parts of myself contribute to where I stand today - as a prehistoric animal person who is, somehow, completely at home in modernity.

Throughout this essay, I’m going to refer to my raptor self in the third person - it thinks this, it wants that. I separate myself from my theriotype in this way because I do not feel like I’m myself in a mental shift. My raptorial mind is not a person, but an animal. It is incapable of understanding abstract concepts or philosophical thought, living in the physical world where it gets food, water, rest, shelter, and enrichment. This does not make it any lesser than my sapient mind - it does mean that it has a different way of understanding the world.

My raptor brain, the instinctual animal side, does not feel like it’s an animal from another era. It doesn’t even know what time is, beyond the regular cycles of day and night. It doesn’t understand common features of modern human society, like computers or elevators or money - not because those things didn’t exist back in prehistoric Asia, 75 million years ago, but because it’s an animal. I could be a gecko from the modern day and still feel the same mentally shifted apathy and confusion about the things I need to live day to day as a human being. The raptor doesn’t know or care about its status as a long-extinct relic, because as far as it’s concerned, it is alive and well, healthy and fed and comfortable in a house with people it knows.

In fact, my raptor brain doesn’t even feel attached to a habitat. Early on in my awakening, as someone who knows where velociraptors used to live in the spacetime continuum, I felt a sort of connection with deserts - I’d look at them and think, that’s like the place my species lived! This was the part of me who’s a person, putting a label to a place that I’ve never been, thinking fondly of it despite never having lived there.

The part of me that’s not a person, that knows nothing but pavement and grass and many-walled shelters keeping out the wind, looks at the desert and bristles with distaste. It doesn’t like the idea of being somewhere it doesn’t know, with sand and scorching sun and no food it knows how to catch. It knows its home territory, a place with cooling wooden floorboards and a comfortable nest of mattress and blankets and a cache of good food that never runs out, and it likes its territory. It doesn’t like the desert or understand the significance of it. It can’t comprehend the idea of wilderness enough to miss it. It doesn’t want to be wild and free, it wants to live in a building with air conditioning and clean freshwater from the sink.

As you can see, my raptor self is perfectly content to be a modern animal. How about my human self, the part of me that can think about my theriotype and know that it’s a prehistoric animal? Do I long for ancient deserts, grieve and yearn for a world I never experienced because I know it might have once been home?

Well… no. I don’t. For better or worse, my humanity feels inexorably linked to modernity, to cities, to technology. I can’t go anywhere or do anything without running into electronics. I use the internet every day of my life to learn, entertain, engage with the world around me. I couldn’t imagine living a life where I didn’t have it. There’s no disconnect from the modern day for me, no longing for the past - only the sense that I’m right where I want to be.

As a person, I’m content with where I am today. As an animal, a raptor can’t yearn for a time it has never lived.

Exploring My Mouseness

The nonhuman community has a habit of only discussing and focusing on therianthropic identities, but I'd like to share how prevalent my rodent kithtype is in my life and to me (sometimes in ways more important than my theriotype).

Growing up, I was often left to my own devices due to a dad that came home late and a mother who could care less for my existence. My activity of choice was being in the yard from the moment I woke up until the moment it was dinner time. Laying on the concrete one summer day, I heard rustling in the window well which would unknowingly change my life.

On hands and knees, I moved towards the well and peered in, where my eyes met a scared mouse's beady black ones. It couldn't get out of the well it had fallen into and would surely die. My parents didn't like rodents, so I tip toed into the basement and got a long poled duster and a roll of duct tape. I put the duct tape along the slick pole and dropped it down into the well which the mouse quickly gripped onto and skittered up. It hopped off and, while I expected it to bolt immediately, it didn't. It stared at me for a moment standing on its hindlegs before finally leaving, and that would be the end of a mouse saving saga... Or so I thought.

The next day, a mouse was moving under the wooden step on the patio. Seed by seed, grass blade by grass blade, the mouse I affectionately named Mr. Kibbles would make a home poetically at the entrance of my own human home. I tossed out scraps of food, a cap full of water, fluffy bits of fabric or hair, and soon enough, Mr. Kibbles brought a Mrs. Kibbles.

Seemingly in a few weeks, I had gone from saving one mouse from the well to saving several mice which all lived throughout the rocks and dirt. Even as a kid, I had the intelligence to cover the well and so I did. All was well and my parents didn't mind, until one made it into the basement one day. That's when the mouse traps started, but I was cunning. I'd sneak the mouse traps into the trash when no one looked. If more appeared, I'd sabotage them by breaking them apart. My parents loathed me, but I was persistent and knew how to exhaust them. If I had to, I'd go into the basement and open the spider web infested well window and reach my hand in, grabbing mice myself and putting them in a box to bring back outside. It all began there that for once, I felt I had a family. A real one, even if it did no providing for me... Sort of.

Mice provided me life skills applicable to an abusive home. I observed every survival skill these mice had to offer. How to sneak and move quietly. How to store food. How to hide. How to make a safe den. How to hide weakness. How to turn a trashed box into a home and scraps into a meal. The rats in cities showed me how to thrive in a heavily populated environment. Capybaras showed me how to relax and enjoy life. Hamsters showed me the domestic side of rodenthood, of living in an artificial world and remain enriched. The squirrels showed me a world above the ground. Even in movies, rodents took a precedence in my mind and taught me things. Ratatouille taught me how to cook and I became quite good at it. Arrietty, who reminded me so much of a mouse, showed me how to be small and resourceful in a world that felt bigger than me. The Tale of Desperaux helped me be myself and Willard was incredibly relatable.

My biggest life teachers and what really raised me were often rodents of many, many kinds. The "pests" and "scum" that mice and rats are seen as taught me how to be seen as good for nothing, and yet survive. Even thrive. As an adult, the skills and lifestyle of rodenthood still helps me stay happy. I still love cooking and learned how to essentially be a chef because of Ratatouille, so I am always eating well no matter what I have. I can identify dangerous people because I analyze who moves like a predator and who moves like a mouse. You will find cups shaped like flower heads in my cabinet as an homage to my family of a million individuals, each unique even in a colony. I also feel that I am more compassionate because I could find such great value in something so small and unwanted by the majority, and yet I am capable of standing up for myself just as the mouse who stands off with the cat.

At times, I consider if I identify myself as rodent or if rodent is merely my imprinted family, but I value them no less regardless. If you have a kithtype, definitely share it with the community as they can be just as important, if not more so, than even a kintype.

hey did you know that uhh

i. the monster's body is a cultural body

ii. the monster always escapes

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire

vii. the monster stands at the threshold… of becoming

Tech Fun Fact #7

The term “kin”, in contexts of fictionkin or otherkin, actually originated from a Lord of the Rings forum! Some members of the forum felt as if they where spiritually elves from the series, and thus coined the term “Elfkin”. When other kintypes appeared, Elfkins assigned them as “Otherkin”, which is where the term comes from!

Territory, and What it Is to Be a Dragon

That last essay I reblogged got me thinking about what being dragon really means to me, what the core of it is, so here I am writing.

(Obviously my experiences of draconity and what it means to be a dragon are not going to be universal. When I say "dragon" in this post, I mean specifically my species of dragon; I just don't know what we call ourselves in our own tongue, so I only have dragon to call it.)

Disclaimer aside:

What is it to be a dragon?

Dragon is many things, many small things that come together to form a larger picture. Or at least, that's how dragon-in-human-skin is.

Flight, for one. Flight is the first thing I remember wanting so badly that it hurt all the way down to the core of my bones. What is there to say about it? It's home, it's life; a grounded dragon is a dead dragon. Flight is hard work, yes, but the sky is where we are safest, where the only thing that can touch us is another dragon, and it's difficult for even them to approach unnoticed. Hunting from above is the safest and most effective way to do it. Patrolling the territory is easiest when one doesn't have to contend with any obstacles but the currents of the wind.

I have to concur with Rook (@/words-of-wolf) in that aforementioned essay; the violence in me does not come from the hunt, it comes from the territory. Dragons are viciously territorial creatures, more often than not willing to die for our claim, our lair, our hoard. But the hunt... the hunt is swift, and lethal, and does not strike dragonbrain as particularly violent. A hunt isn't a fight. I don't know whether dragon!me thought of my prey as beings capable of fear and pain; we were sort of sapient (enough so to have names, at least), but only sort of.

Territory, though. Territory is core to being dragon, for me. A dragon needs to claim things and places as mine, and it will, whether or not that claim is appropriate. Much like a parrot, if it doesn't have an appropriate outlet, it will make an inappropriate one (and sometimes it will do so even if it is given an appropriate outlet - despite having an actual territory my brain likes to claim any room I spend a significant amount of time in as mine, even if it's technically shared space, and I've almost lashed out at a coworker for the crime of turning the fan off in my room when it was just as much his room as mine). There is a certain amount of possessiveness to a dragon that is inescapable.

My mother often questions why dragons hoard gold. I can talk about courting behaviors, I can talk about how it theoretically proves you're able to protect something precious to a mate, but in the end, the answer is simply because we must. Hoard is core to us, as much as allogrooming is to a primate or hunting is to a cat. My hoard serves no purpose now; I have no other dragons to court even if I wanted to. But still I am driven to hoard nonetheless, just as a cat is driven to hunt no matter whether it's actually hungry or not. Dragonbrain only sort of cares about why territory and hoard are important, how they feed and protect and offer mating opportunities. It just knows that they are important, and that it will fight to the death to defend them - why only sort of matters.

This is, I think, a lot of where my draconic pride comes from. Draconic pride is something we talk about in draconic spaces with some regularity; whatever the kind of dragon, there's more often than not some amount of pride and vanity associated with being a dragon, any kind of dragon. It's instinctive for many of us. It's probably culturally learned for all of us. But there is also a sense of natural pride that comes with this is mine, none can take it from me, I think. Pride, too, is core to draconity, in all its flawed glory, but it is integrally tied with these things, and perhaps that's why it's so core to draconity. (Perhaps that's why it's so common as well - I've rarely met a dragon who isn't some degree of territorial.)

Psychological therian not as in "this one circumstance from my childhood made me this one species" but as in "millions of tiny things over the course of my entire life from birth to well into adulthood added up to create a nonhuman identity that likely continues to evolve as my psyche changes, some of which I can identify but many of which will get lost as memories of unremarkable life events seemingly unrelated to my nonhumanity"

Reclaiming "Female" Through Therianthropy

This is my submission for the "My Gender is Not Human" zine. Here, I discuss how I realized I was not transgender because of my therianthropy and I hope that maybe someone else may relate and understand themselves in a new way. ♡

If you want to wait to read this until the Zine is released, then do not continue past the "keep reading" portion. Otherwise, enjoy!

PS: If this interests you, I'd strongly advise playing Shelter 2 (where I got the photo below from) as it relates a lot to my own experience.

CW: Body issues, misogyny

Can you imagine the scent of the velvet fuzz of a newborn animal? The experience of a dark den now filled with new life, life that hasn't even opened its eyes yet to the winter world just outside? Can you imagine the tiredness yet sheer love and comfort of having your children welcomed into the world, witnessed only by you and the Earth’s soil?

It's something I often dream of, and it's that very experience that made me realize that I am not transgender. It's funny because in this community, it feels as though the majority of individuals here are transgender and that experience ties closely into their nonhumanity. For me, the opposite occurred. I had a top surgery letter in my hand after years of feeling “not quite right” in my body or in how people perceived me. I had every reason to feel this way and to want this, even if it felt imperfect. Looking back, I remember how I got to this point.

“Be skinnier any way you can, it’ll make you prettier” they’d say as they, themselves, were ironically obese and I loved them no less for it.

“Grow your hair long and change your clothes, you’ll look more like a lady.” A projection rooted in the ideals of someone who reads far too much Jane Austen.

“Women should be subservient and provide endlessly, or they’re selfish.”

Dread set in every time I filled someone’s coffee or plate of food due to expectation or demand and not out of love and kindness. Everytime the topic of how I looked in a dress or how my hair wasn’t as long as someone else wanted. The disappointment of my family when they learned I had dated other women in the past and their relief when I dated one man. The eyerolls and my teacher’s discouragement when I expressed an interest in physics or chemistry. Even my finance degree was achieved through apparent luck despite graduating top of my class. Every “right” I accomplished was met with a “wrong” in some new category. The very things that made men impressive made me disobedient. I starved myself to look a little nicer to strangers, cried in bed after being talked down to at work, slept away all of my sorrows in a curled up ball. Humanity didn’t take kindly to me.

It frustrated me, and combined with my general lack of identity at the time along with diagnosed CPTSD, it was easy to relate to the plight that transgender individuals experienced. Surely that had to be me, but the label and being perceived as something besides female never clicked entirely. I figured that I may just have mild gender dysphoria instead, but for the first time, I really deep dived into what it meant to identify as a gender as everyone was needing urgent, permanent decisions to be made on my end. Around this time, I took on my first mammal label which was a feline. Ironically, cats are often the first animals to be associated with femininity and to be mistreated because of it.

I wanted motherhood, but I wanted my own kittens to rear more than I felt like I wanted to raise a human infant after spending time in a daycare and at a cat shelter. I didn’t want my breasts, but not because I wasn’t a girl, that’s just how other animals are. Perfume was a method to mark the rooms I had been in, not for elegance. I still felt so female, yet I didn’t see another way out besides transitioning until it occurred to me: what if I didn’t have to be a “woman”, and instead, I could simply be female the way animals are female? 

There were so many women like me such as in Brave, Princess Mononoke, Poor Things, or Wolf Children. The women who strayed from polite society to walk their own paths and stuck to their own desires. Even my own cat was female and yet held her chin so high and demanded when she would or would not be held. This realization was the first time I found myself feeling feral freedom and uninhibited beauty in the way I was. I was going to be the woman that rolls in the dirt, who is unapologetically beautiful in her own way, who chases after whatever her wild heart desires. I am not transgender, but I am not entirely a woman. I am an animal, and I am female in all of its unbridled ways.

Shedding my domestic cat label, I have taken up the title of bobcat. With it, I swear on my name that I will bite the hand of any who wish to tame or domesticate me ever again. I have been released out of the crate and back into the wilderness where I belong, and I shall never look back down the mountain. I feel the moss beneath my paws, the cold breeze kissing my nose, the smell of rain soaked woods and wildflowers. Ravens cry as I run on four legs towards the peak, released at last from the grips of mankind. I feel the warmth of a life suddenly worth living, growing along with the hair I now reclaim as my own fur without shame or expectation. I am home at the summit of my own world.

My spirit runs wild, and she is female.

Do you miss all your old selves?

no they are inside of me i hug them everyday and say u did such a good job

No more sterile white boxes.

hey!!

felinekin, caninekin, any kin of the sorts!!

please interact with me !! i need therian/alterhuman mutuals/friends :3c

please reblog (or just int) if youre on therian / otherkin / alterhuman tumblr im so desperate for more mutuals. pspsps. reveal yourselves

i can be trusted on a nature walk i promise. i promise i will stay on the trail and will not run off into the forest never to be seen again i promise