confused-critter
confused-critter
This critter is confused
115 posts
any pronouns (except neos) for now. Shapeshifterkin, leaning more towards the bird or aquatic side, idk.
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
confused-critter · 8 days ago
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I’ve really been enjoying the community here on Tumblr lately. I follow holotheres, CLs and CZs, and therians, and we get along and I really enjoy their content. I follow several different whales. How cool is that? Instagram and TikTok are pretty much overrun by quadrobics and masks, plus treating any physical nonhuman as delusional (negative) and to be medicated or in therapy without even understanding how it works.
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confused-critter · 9 days ago
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Seeing a lot of folks wear their real fur tails when swimming or when it’s raining heavily, even seen some people washing their tails. DO NOT DO THIS.
The leather inside is not meant to get wet, or even worse, submerged. The preservatives in the tan will break down and the hair will begin to slip and mat. It can weaken it to the point of the leather ripping/tearing. I’ve even seen some cases of rot
If you need to wash/spot clean your tail, dampen a paper towel or a wash cloth and gently wipe down the guard hairs (outer layer of hair, usually contains the coloration and is much coarser than the thick fluffy undercoat). Then let it dry completely and if the dirt is still there, gently brush the spot over and do another wipe. Always always let it air dry, NEVER add heat. This is the same case if you do accidentally get the tail wet, let it air dry and gently brush it during the process. If the dirt is extremely excessive, get in touch with a furriery/tannery and they will most likely have the proper equipment and preservatives to bring your fur back to new!
And don’t worry too much if you get stuck in light rain or get spritzed, real fur is incredibly water resistant, it’s why it is such a popular clothing choice. Just don’t drench it :-)
Sincerely, a taxidermist.
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confused-critter · 22 days ago
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people when you say your nonhumanity comes from neurodivergence (autism): yayyyy!! yippee!!!! so valid!!! thirteen billion gold medals!!!
people when you say your nonhumanity comes from neurodivergence (schizophrenia):
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confused-critter · 23 days ago
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the mustangs of salt wells creek 🐞
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confused-critter · 23 days ago
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Delusion, Clinical Zoanthropy
I am a clinical zoanthrope. I have schizophrenia. If you have read my posts or blog before this should be no surprise as I am quite open about it. These labels that have been put on me affect nearly every aspect of my life, and greatly affect how I interact with the community. There is often a lot of discussion surrounding ideas of physical identity, delusion and if these things should be acceptable within the community or how to handle these topics.
Length: 3676 words
TW: delusions, reality checking, mentions of medical abuse
The year before last, I had spent quite a bit of time working with another academic to construct a historical materialist analysis of therianthropy. Historical materialism for people who are not familiar is a method of analysing history through the lens of production and class society. In particular, given the apparent wealth of historical therianthropy among “primitive” society, and the narrow niche of modern therianthropy, as well as my own treatment at the hands of the medical system, I wished to understand the origins of the oppression of therianthropic identity. I have to date not completed the project for a number of reasons - limited available literature regarding the transition from pre-class society to slave society particularly regarding religious and spiritual beliefs, personal health and time, and forcing myself to create a complex system of double bookkeeping and analysing my experiences through a materialist lens essentially constantly and forcibly reality checking myself constantly was very taxing.
Although I did not get to the state to write and publish the paper, I did learn a fair bit, and I think the most important concept within this discussion is the concept of delusion and how we define it. There is a common vulgar definition of delusion as believing anything that is not real or not backed by scientific consensus. But then there are many things people believe which is not backed by scientific consensus. While certainly there are people who would say that anyone who believes in ghosts or the Christian God are delusional, nearly half of the people in my country believe in God, however we lack any materialist evidence at this point for such a thing. The state of being identified by others as delusional comes with some pretty serious consequences, it should be noted though that these consequences are not applied to people who believe in God. Similarly, there are times when scientific consensus is simply wrong. Is the man who rejects the inherent inferiority of the [Sub-saharan Afrikan] race because of their skull shape and “thick skin” delusional? We today would collectively say no. For a man in the early 19th century, this would have been scientific consensus even if now we should find such a thought abhorrent. Was he then delusional? (Though some people did try to justify slaves escaping as a mental health condition Drapetomania, and historical terms like madness are often connected to modern terms like delusion and psychosis). I think often modern humans can create an almost religion out of science and progress and belief in their own rationalism - that not only is there absolute objective truth, but they can and do know it all in this particular moment, and that the society they exist within does not effect an impact on their view.
It is important to understand that delusion has a fairly specific definition and caveat when talking in a medical definition. That important caveat is that the belief conflicts, or is not standard, within their culture or subculture. Not only that, the belief must be very fixed and firmly set which does not respond/change to the presence of outside evidence. This cultural context is an important factor in the diagnostic criteria for delusions, as well as dissociative disorders like OSDD and DID (it may well be important for other conditions diagnostic criteria as well though I lack experience to speak on that topic).
Delusions -are- very much socially defined. I make the joke often that a rich man hears the voice of God he runs for office, I hear the voice of a spirit and need to be on antipsychotics. There are a number of examples namely in SEA where the experience of transforming into another animal would be considered entirely within the range of normal possibility (though notably with tigers primarily). There are also cultures and practices in which physical transformation is not considered delusion but a normal part of ritual notably among the Xan peoples. Among some Siberian cultures as part of hunting some will take essentially the mind of a wolf. In South Asia there are also recorded practices in which a person’s soul is bonded to and moved to an animal’s body in the night. Most people those reading this might encounter day to day would think these are surely delusions, but for those people, it is just a normal part of life and culture.
Most people here would collectively agree that therianthropy is not a delusion, however from outside the community many easily could argue it. You -are- human, you can look at your body and it and see that it -is- human. If you argue for past lives, there exists no evidence supporting that and no evidence supporting the existence of spirit or plausible explanation beyond hallucination despite many attempts to measure their existence. Nor do you have the instincts of that animal because you are clearly a human, and any "instincts" you might have are phantoms of the mind or attaching to a certain animal as a way to manage your life. However neither of these explanations would be acceptable nor would they convince you that you are wholly and entirely human.
Similarly with transgender identity, people here would collectively agree that is not a delusion. But 60 years ago? Or among transphobes? You are experiencing a delusion. You are obviously a wo/man, and no amount of hormones, [presentation], or [surgery] will change that. We would all collectively say fuck that shit, but you know who agrees under certain circumstances? WPATH in their Standards of Care directly notes among certain conditions of transgender identity as delusion (or at least in their old SOC before informed consent became common). It is common for people with schizo-spectrum disorders and higher level structural dissociative disorders to be denied care, or to face significant pushback. But this can also be true for all sorts of other “less serious” conditions such as austime, adhd, depression etc. This is something I have faced, and who knows how many others have faced it as well.
But what a delusion is very much defined by perspective and culture. It is easy when sitting on the "non-delusional" side of a cultural belief, to believe the order of things is logical. However, when I must construct materialist explanations of experiences, a task for which I am forced as part of double bookkeeping, the differences between my "delusional" experiences, and others "nondelusional" experiences especially in regards to therianthropy is one of degree, not of kind. Do not make the mistake to think that in other scenarios, other cultures, your experiences may be seen as delusions, and in other places, mine as natural and grounded in reality.
My experience as a clinical zoanthrope has left me often feeling quite divorced from the community, that I am separate, unwelcome, or an interloper in what is supposed to be my own community. I have been in the community for a while, but only at certain points felt comfortable to really call myself therian, a feeling which is again waning. There is a strong push constantly against physical identity. Even the most (in)famous phrase in wider culture about therians is the “on all levels except physical I am a wolf”. However this pushback against physical identities, especially from the concerns over P-shifter cults and abuses, created an environment that for me to be tolerated, I would have to constantly “show insight” or really reality check myself, and ensure all the others there knew that I knew my experience was not real and was not like their experiences were (that theirs were real and different). I still often have to do the dance describing my experiences, and even in the terms I use for myself as a clinical zoanthrope is indirectly that same dance.
The therian community often prides itself on how accepting it is. Though to be honest, I really have to question if this is the case. I have always felt unwelcome by the broader community. But so have very many others. It always strikes me that whenever I really share my experiences, how many others really relate to that feeling of not feeling wholly secure or belonging within the community. My orca friend, Ike, has talked quite a lot how they simply did not join the community for so long for feeling unwelcome. Sharing my experiences on a discord server a few weeks ago I learned another member was also a zoanthrope but had never shared it for fear of ostracization. A number of others expressed sentiments of feeling not total included, some for shift strengths, some for things like sexuality, theriomythics often get excluded, etc. Heck, by some accounts even the transition to the term Therian away from Were was an effort to include more people besides just shapeshifters.
Really when you think about it, it is not surprising so many people feel excluded in various ways. Therians have all these lines that you have to sit inside of and not cross to be acceptable to the community. But when you try to actually measure those lines many are not only extremely blurry, but vary person to person. Indeed my own experience is that there are people that do accept me, even if the wider community does not, and that is really the only reason I stayed.
The community has historically for instance a pretty hard stance on delusion and hallucination. The question though is, when does a shift move from being a socially acceptable phantom shift, to an unacceptable hallucination. For me in particular, my sensation of shift goes through a fairly long process of getting more and more intense, but it is also really a quite smooth process. It is like following a colour line, when does ‘blue’ truly begin? The first sensation is often a slight tickling, and very light phantom touch that you can sort of see through the feeling on your body. Beyond that the sensation gets more intense and becomes bothered from having things push against or intersect it. Further it begins to have not only form but colour and texture, but still if I look at the limb I cannot see it, I still see a human limb, though I do not expect it. Further the visual appearance comes in more and more until eventually my human parts are gone, transformed into animal parts I can see and I can touch. When we write it out like this it is pretty separately defined, but in the process this occurs for me, it is very smooth.
After enough quantitative change, there is a qualitative change, but where and when that occurs is hard to say. I think the first two experiences are very common among therians. I think the third experience is also fairly common but that starts to get more and more into the blurry lines, and if you cannot see where that line is you are likely to downplay your own experiences for fear if you say too much, you will be excised or ostracised from the community. But this fear also has the doubly cruel aspect that you can never really know where that line is because many people downplay their experiences to make them palatable, and so though many others might share in these experiences, people simply do not speak of them because they only see either extreme being shared, the particularly minor shifts being accepted, or the extreme shifts being sorted into delusions. I think it creates a false binary from a spectrum of experiences.
So many of these blurry lines exist though. What age can you be taken seriously? What platform do you use? How many kintypes is too many? Theriotypes being too common? Theriotypes being too rare? Are paleotherians acceptable? Are theriomythics acceptable? Can a dragon be a therian? Can an otherlinker or copinglinker have their identity so long it becomes therian? Are beastly animals from fictional settings acceptable or should they be with fictionkind? What sort of sexual and romantic expression is allowable? Is transspecies an acceptable identity? Some of these are blurry, some of them are clear, but they all wiggle around in different ways of some people will find them acceptable and some not. This leads to people self-censoring to the safe answers that they know are acceptable and prevents them really exploring their own identities, but also these questions within the community as it learns and grows and becomes more inclusive. In a certain irony, therianthropes as a community, are actually quite demanding in their conformity while preaching of their acceptance.
There has been a significant push in recent years to give greater levels of inclusion to therians with both delusional identities and physical identities. People are generally more accepting of zoanthropes and at points I have felt comfortable even to call myself therian and not just a member of the community. But there are also a number of additional terms, namely endel and holothere, which cover these experiences. However, something I note often when people talk why I as a clinical zoanthrope can be acceptable, while P-shifters and at times holotheres cannot, still comes down to that I acknowledge my experience as delusion. When I read the experiences of at least some p-shifters and holotheres, often the difference really is not so great, I often see their experiences mimicking or mirroring my own. I do use the word clinical zoanthropy, which on some level does indicate an understanding I know that at least others see my experiences as not real. This is a pretty common feeling among zoanthropes, we use this word, we know the humans think our experiences are not real, but they are incredibly real to us.
The question then is what should be done with us? There is a lot of comment that allowing us in the community to share our experiences or not reality checking people is encouraging delusion. People also say that delusions are harmful and that we should seek medical help. There are quite a few people who even wish to excise or isolate those who are anti-psychiatry and anti-recovery from the community.
If I am forced to analyse my experiences through a materialist and distant lens, it is quite clear my experiences are heavily rooted in delusion. I am a scientist, and there is no means under current knowledge to explain what I experience except hallucination - still I believe it fully. My knowing this is the only logical explanation does not lead me to believe it, to truly believe it inside. I mentioned before I had to give up on projects I did really enjoy because forcing myself to continuously deny my experiences and continuously reality check myself, brought to me very much distress. There are times I have wanted to be reality checked, but for vast part that is the remainder it is really distressing. It is distressing to be told a core part of your identity is not real, to be told the you that exists isn’t the real you, and sometimes see people mourning the “sane you”. Individuals in the community are not going to solve my “delusion” by reality checking myself or others.
Nor will them blocking me from the community or ensuring I do the dance for them encourage my “delusions” away. Delusions are heavily fixed experiences, and though you can encourage them in certain ways (think the example of people making “in your walls” jokes at schizophrenics), us talking about and sharing our experiences with each other and in our own community helps us feel understood and a sense of belonging. There are so few of us to start with, and the community closest to us either often disallows us, or makes us sit at the edge never really able to join. All banning us does is further isolate us, and for many delusions reinforces that we will never be acceptable or tolerable to others and it is best we are alone so we don’t hurt others with our presence.
I cannot speak on every person’s delusions, but I can speak on my own. For the question of if delusions are harmful, I think it often asks the wrong question. Who is it harmful to? Under what framework? Who thinks it is harmful? What does the patient want? I think one could say that my delusions of turning into a whale do harm me. I have trouble to interact with humans, I cannot work a full time job, I struggle in relationships, many nights I lay on the couch stuck for hours simply unable to move. These are all pretty negative things no? But it fails to ask why are these things harmful? A doctor looks through a very human framework and sees that I cannot do the human things and sees that I must have a poor quality of life and these delusions need to be addressed. But I am a whale and it is a core part of me, these things can be distressing, but whales cannot interact with humans the same way two humans would, work a full time job, have relationships with humans, and if you stuck them on a couch they would also not be able to move. This all is distressing and perhaps harmful, but then what other option is there? What the humans offer to me as solution is far worse.
I am anti-recovery, at least for myself. I think it is important to ask what does recovery look like? For me recovery would be to return to the water where I belong. But the humans would certainly say otherwise. For them recovery would look like fitting into and functioning within human society - having a job, a house, a car, a husband, kids, going on holiday, etc. I am not a human and I do not wish to be a human and live among them. However what is worse is how the humans would go about fixing that. I have been locked in hospitals, I have been strapped down, I have been sedated, I have been put on horrible meds that destroyed things I cared about and have often left me a shell of a person (there is a reason they were marketed as a chemical lobotomy). Some things I have gotten better in over time, and I can hold a job for the moment, even quite technical and difficult jobs.
However, the damage done to me from the humans was severe. Although I can talk about being a whale as delusion, the why is really far more impactful and distressing in my life. I was taken from the water, turned human, and am a useful thing for the humans. This understanding of myself as merely a tool and something the humans can do whatever they want with me is the real distressing aspect of my life. For me, the ‘help’ I received at the hospital only strengthened and set this delusion in so much firmer. I can look back at certain experiences, I can see the humans don’t have the technology to do what they did to me, but then I also have those years in the hospital, those years where everything was very apparent and clear and something that others can confirm and it seems to only further make plausible the experiences of the past, and those in the present the fear for what the humans will do to me. I know that I am deteriorating, I am struggling more and more, but nothing the humans offer me will make things better, they will only hurt me more, and if I ask for help, and reject it, they will only see it as proof I need the help more and force it onto me, which will only further reinforce that delusion.
If someone wishes to see a doctor and talk about therian things, I do often warn them of caution for what happened to myself and I do not want others hurt that way. I also urge them to think about what they want as the outcome from that discussion or what they hope will happen. A lot of mentally ill people have been hurt by doctors who thought they knew best, and once something is said, it cannot be undone. However, in the end they are free to decide what they will, and are free to navigate the medical system if they think it will benefit them.
For myself, I struggle to believe that doctors would really help me and instead work to help myself and my cetacean friends so that maybe someday we could swim again and swim forever. That we can fix ourselves and heal. That in time the deep scars across our bodies might start to fade and look like the scars of other captive cetaceans. That instead of surviving merely trying to please the humans to not be hurt, that we might actually -live- and have the life we were denied.
We are still people with agency, agency to choose our own path, to choose what brings us joy, to decide what we want from life, and from our healthcare. Or at least we should be granted that agency. We should not be excluded from the community or forced to dance around our experiences as not real for the comfort of others who happen to lie on the other side of the sane-delusional line, afterall the positioning of that line is very arbitrary and could easily swing to find yourself on my side of that line.
~ Kala
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confused-critter · 2 months ago
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Nonhuman story ideas I forgot about part 2-
A cryptid and cryptidkin band together to scare the living daylights out of the land developers who tried to plow over the Florida swamp they live in.
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confused-critter · 2 months ago
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Nonhuman fantasy story ideas I forgot about part 1:
A vampire and a vampirekin are roommates. Both of them think they're the only nonhuman in the house and are trying (and failing miserably) to hide it from the other.
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confused-critter · 2 months ago
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Therians be like
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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Happy Empty the Tanks Day! There’s no beauty in stolen freedom🐬
Image credit: Empty the Tanks, Animal Welfare Institute, and Oceanic Preservation Society
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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Dolphin hate
I honestly think the way people are talking about dolphins now is disgusting. It's great to see sharks no longer portrayed as mindless killers, but it seems dolphins are getting that treatment. Alot of what is being said about them are straight up lies or huge exaggerations. 😭
I'm not saying dolphins are perfect angels. They're not. As with any other wild animal, they definitely can be dangerous, and their actions can seem cruel. But dolphins are not humans. To apply a human moral compass to them achieves nothing. 0.o
Acting like they are genuinely evil and bad natured beings only leads to people wishing them harm. I have seen people wish death and pain on dolphins. Here's hoping people switch up on them as fast they did sharks 🤞as these intelligent, charismatic souls don't deserve all this hate 🐬
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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Same!! :D
as a hoh person this is the most beautiful thing u can see on a video you like
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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Hey, so, unfriendly reminder. If you...
Gatekeep therianthropy (tell someone they can't be a therian because it's physical, are young, don't behave like their theriotype, don't have species dysphoria, etc.)...
Bully other therians for having urges/behaviors you consider "abnormal" (atypical dysphoria, kink-related urges, crying spells due to species dysphoria, uncontrollable vocals, etc.)...
Make fun of another therian's theriotype (with bad intent)...
Shame another therian for having a lot of theriotypes...
Only support therians who don't do quads or wear gear...
Decide someone else isn't a therian for xyz just because you don't like their presentation of therianthropy...
Try to make jokes that make the community as a whole look bad (z00philia jokes, putting down another therian for the sake of a laugh, etc.)...
...then you are anti-therian!
It's always the same therianthropes who claim to hate anti-therians, yet will shit on physical therians like myself, or judge another therian for existing.
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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Happy therianthropy day everyone!
I hope every being is going to have an amazing day, you deserve it!
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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Wish I could help, but every time I do it the growl sounds like a weak car engine.
Chat, does anyone know how to growl like a dog? I don't really know how to do it without it sounding like purring, if I can even do more than that because of this pathetic human body 😔
I'd appreciate a tutorial because I can't find any
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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Vermillion
So I wrote a story about this wolf shapeshifter and their wolfkin buddy on wattpad, and I kinda abandoned the story due to me becoming busy and executive dysfunction. I made this story before I knew I was otherkin, thinking about how'd it be like if wolfkin and werewolves/wolf shifters to live together in a modern fantasy setting, running together in the woods and helping out in the grandmother's cafe.
Or for a vampire and a vampirekin to be roommates, each thinking that the other is a vampire/vampirekin, having to create excuses to evade the third roommate, who is wondering what tf is going on with these two.
I really liked that, and I want to try it again. I will have to rewrite it, though, since the wolf shifter story (called Vermillion) was a blatant ripoff of the graphic novel Mooncakes.
I'm keeping all of the main characters (just changing their names) and polishing up the lore and worldbuilding to be up to date with what I want for this story. Hopefully this can be a success and not a one-off thing.
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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WOOOOOO!!!!
Therianthropy Day is Friday, November 15, 2024
Therianthropy Day is held every year on the first full moon of November. This year, in 2024, that falls on Friday the 15th. According to NASA, this also happens to be a supermoon, which means it’s slightly brighter than usual.
Why that date, and what is the history of that holiday? 
Therianthropy Day commemorates the first Howl, which was held 30 years ago in November 1994. A Howl is when therians meet up together in person. That was a year after the first therians started to meet up together online in November 1993. Therians first proposed commemorating it as a holiday on that date in 1996, in a conversation thread you can still see here. Based on that history, in 2016, Muninn the Raven proposed observing it as Therianthropy Day, though the first posts and community poll about it attracted little attention. I think the holiday finally really caught on in 2021, when I first saw many therians posting on social media about fun things they were doing for it.
What are therians, anyway?
If therianthropy is a new idea to you, or you want to explain it to others who are unfamiliar with it, this essay is a quick and easy to understand introduction to it. It’s available in several languages already, and more translations would be great.
Learn more about the history of the therian community by reading the Timeline of the Therian Community written by @liongoatsnake
What can we do for Therianthropy Day?
I’ve seen therians celebrate it by wearing gear (for example, a necklace with the therian symbol, or clothes with pictures of their species), meeting up with their therian friends, and howling at the moon.
Enjoy some indie games and zines about therianthropy from this hand-curated itch.io collection. Some therian highlights from that: SlumberDragon’s zine of self-care tips for animal folk, @who-is-page’s therianthropy-inspired solo journaling game Wolf In Man’s Clothing, puppygirlbelly’s interactive story I Am Dog(s), and Digital Freegans’s zines THERIANARCHY and BEAST PUNKS.
Are there days for other sorts of alterhumans too?
There are. Alterhuman Day commemorates when Lio of the Crossroads System coined that word on September 26, 2014. Otherkin Day is on July 9, commemorating when the word was coined in 1990, though Arethinn has found that the word’s origin is a little more complicated than that. Plural Events says that Plural Pride Day is the third Saturday of July, and Plural Acceptance Week is that week.
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confused-critter · 3 months ago
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Does anyone else have their animalistic instincts suddenly activated just in everyday life over normal situations?
My goose instincts tend to go mayday over random events for example; for my birthday last month my friend got me a dancing goose toy. The second it was in my hands and it started moving I suddenly felt a deep sort of motherly drive? The same happened the other day, I was watching videos of geese. One of which was a gosling walking along a car park, I had to turn the video off because it was genuinely so stressful watching an unsupervised gosling walking around cars (parked cars but nonetheless).
When I feel threatened I flick my head to ruffle my feathers, a behaviour geese do to make themselves larger and therefore more intimidating. I often find myself doing sentry behaviours whenever I’m with people I care about (as in constantly watching for threat). When people are threatening me I find myself directing my face up at them similarly to how geese will point their beaks as a sign of aggression.
At certain times I feel a strong call to migrate as well oddly. If I ever disappear in a target you know why (tHe miGraTiOn cALLed). I can be quite the pain in the winter as I spend a considerable amount of time staring wistfully at the sky.
This is just instincts in general for me, not really from a particular one of my forms, but I don’t allow things with “incorrect” scents into my sleeping space. Sometimes when I’m holding food and water I get the sudden urge to go hide them somewhere. I am also very particular with my nest building and the people who can touch my nest.
Instinctually I feel the need to provide for people. I always carry food in my bag so my friends are never hungry. Which isn’t something that is entirely nonhuman in its nature, rather the reasoning behind it is very much connected to animalistic aspects of my mind.
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