nova-dracomon

[nova-dracomon]

Gentle but pressing reminder that

You can back up your entire blog, reblogs and drafts included

You can and should save copies of any posts you think are valuable

I exist on other websites (and you probably should too)

[nova-dracomon]

No thoughts, only tail wags 🐾

[nova-dracomon]

3 Heads One Brain Cell

Why am I here? 2/2

The unfortunate answer to a lot of our weekday decisions.

Who are these people? Check out our website to learn about us and our other project.

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[nova-dracomon]

Can’t believe for the past few weeks, I’ve tried to down whether I’m still a Flaremon, or if I’m a *WarGreymon, a *Black WarGreymon, or a member of the Flamon line as my fictotype(s), only to find that I am free neither of these. I am a VictoryGreymon, a specific subspecies of Greymon… that originates from a manga barely anyone has heard of.

Oh, Digimon… you and your speculative biology.

*Including their respective X-Antibody evolutions.

[nova-dracomon]

oh btw one of the easiest and most fun things you can do as a system is headmate cuddle piles at bedtime

it's fun, it's cozy, it makes people happy, you get to hug your friends/sleep with your insys partner, whatever else you want to do, and you should go do it.

We've also noticed that it helps us fall asleep faster because we're happier and more relaxed

go cuddle with your headmates its good for you

[nova-dracomon]

HowlCon Panelist & Artist Applications Now Open

Artist

Apply Now

Signing up as an artist is the best way to maximize the visibility of your commissions during the con.

Artists are given exclusive access to post their wares in our artist alley channels. And, if they wish, to add art streams to our official con schedule.

HowlCon is not responsible for any sales that take place.

Panelist

Apply Now

Have an event you want to host? This is what being a panelist is about! From meet-ups, lectures, discussions, gaming together, arts and crafts time, and many more ideas we don't have the space to list. Your topic does not have to be explicitly about alterhumans or nonhumans.

We accept panels hosted live, pre-recorded and through text. Applications close July 1, 2025

[nova-dracomon]

Merry Beltane ^^ Go outside, and stretch your wings and legs, creatures. Go dance in the sun and eat something nice; summer is almost here, say hello to it.

To me it’s important as a nonhuman to honor the seasons and cycles of the world, and even if you’re not a pagan practitioner, have fun.

[nova-dracomon]

Defining The Selkie Archetrope

aka - Tiercel figured out storm was a selkie archetrope and now storm's trying to define it in a way that makes sense [Also I've decided I'm going to start putting wordcounts for my long essays above a cut so people know what they're getting into and it doesn't eat up the whole feed.] Wordcount: 1,076 Topic: Selkie Archetropy

There's a question of what a Selkie *is*, and what the Selkie as a figure represents. Selkies themselves are a mythological nonhuman creature present in Icelandic, Faroese, Scottish, and Irish folklores, they are able to transform themselves between seal and human form at will by putting on/taking off their sealskin (often referred to as their coat) and are frequently considered fae-adjacent, if not simply magical. What a Selkie represents is different, however. Most tales of Selkies are tragedies. Animal wife tales. Their coats are stolen by greedy men (and yes, unfortunately the offender is nearly always a man) looking to have a gorgeous selkie bride, but they don't realize how much they're hurting her by keeping her from her home in the sea (and in some renditions, her selkie husband or her selkie family), and if they do, they don't care. She always manages to escape in the end, leaving the human man to suffer some sort of tragic fate upon her departure.

The archetypal selkie tells a story in two parts. Capture and Release. Caged and Free. They could also be argued to fall under the Animal Wife (Shapeshifting Lover) trope, however I believe selkies in particular have more specific connotations to them that warrant them having their own archetrope. Defining the Archetype and Story

The selkie archetype is, I believe, defined by the following series of events. - A previously free life in the open sea with their kin, undisturbed by the landfolk. They may or may not have heard stories of them, but know to avoid them, as they bring nothing but trouble. - While sunning or bathing out on the rocky shores, their sealskin is stolen from them by a greedy human, looking to gain something from them. This strips them from their home, culture, and identity and forces them to conform to the human world around them, always against their will. Often they are forced to marry or serve the human in some way, dehumanizing them despite their being dragged into the world of humans. And yet their nonhuman nature always shines through their human guise, whether that be from their strange and unreal beauty, unnaturally good singing, or some other odd aspects about that behavior. The Humans around them can always tell that they're not human in some way. If they have children with the human, their selkie blood shows through as the children take on seal-like features which give away the nature of their selkie parent. - Eventually, the Selkie has enough and finds a way to get their sealskin back and escape. They do this by tricking the human, waiting till they're gone, or by calling upon their non-landbound kin to assist them in returning to the sea. - They leave tragedy and pain for the human in their wake, though it's not undeserved pain, and return to their original home, kin, and culture where they belong. - It's also worth noting that in some stories, selkies do return to the land, but with their kin in tow, and much happier. When they do return it's always with their sealskin and their family, and the ocean is never far. Now while this series of events follows the more typical animal wife trope, I'd like to draw attention to the few specific differences that I believe make them truly unique. The Selkie Is Always Known To Be A Selkie Before they're trapped by the human, they're known to be nonhuman, and even after they're trapped, everyone knows they're nonhuman. Selkies are never made to hide the fact that they are selkies, and the fact that they're trapped in human form is framed as a tragedy rather than a necessary aspect of their integration into human society. Other animal bride stories will either have the animal wife's original form be human (like The Swan Princess) or will have the animal wife actively try to hide their nonhuman nature, and flee when it's discovered (like in kitsune tales). Selkies are always known to be selkies, and it's the human taking that away from them. The Selkie's Skin Is Always Stolen From Them

The Selkie's trapping in human form is always due to their sealskin being stolen from them. Unlike other tropes where, again, the animal wife is willingly hiding, or they're actually trapped in animal form, the Selkie's pelt must be stolen from them to trap them in animal form. There is no willing hiding, there is no binding them in the skin of an animal, there's only trapping by taking away. Their Return To Animal Form Is Framed As Freedom

While this is less specific to selkies, it still mostly shows up in them as opposed to other animal wife tales. In other animal bride tales their return to (or sometimes initial trapping in) animal form is framed as a tragedy, a curse, or something that keeps them from their true ambitions or love (typically, a human). With selkies, their return to seal form means freedom and going back to those they love and consider their family. Becoming an seal again is freeing and always framed in a positive light.

It's these key differences that make the selkie a SELKIE and not a more general animal wife tale (that, and they're always seals). Defining the Archetrope

With the archetypical selkie laid down, what makes the archetrope identity of a Selkie? Identifying as a Selkie archetrope, for me, means fundamentally identifying with the concepts of being Known As Inhuman, having a Stolen Self Identity, and only being free when I Return To My Animal Self. I have lived the selkie story, I am a selkie in many many ways. My life and all that has happened to me is that of a selkie, both in and out of the contexts of my alterhumanity. I am the archetypical selkie, and so I identify as a selkie archetrope. On a more personal level as well, I'm Irish but don't live in Ireland. I've lost a devestating portion of what should've been my language and culture because of my parents insistence on integrating themselves into usamerican culture. I cannot speak Gaeilge, I cannot read it either, I know a pitiful amount of words because I have not had the time to learn. All I have is my name to remind me. Being a selkie archetrope connects me back to it, in a way. All of this, to me, is what defines the selkie archetrope.

[nova-dracomon]

What's Alter-Happening? - Who are you?

A little intro to start off (that absolutely doesn't include all of us--we have too many guys in here for that).

Please do not use our art without our permission. Feel free to ask to use for icons and similar things, but we have the right to say no.

Program: Firealpaca Approx. Time: 4h Original Date: 21.04.25 Commission/Trade/Collab status in bio/pinned! Art Of:

Fin [Headmate]

Merlin [Headmate]

Vince [Headmate]

Mystery [Headmate]

Icarus [Headmate]

Jayfeather [Headmate]

(System Member Artist: Del)

[nova-dracomon]

"songdog 3"

image description: a porcelain wolf with pink fur and wings painted on. it howls, tail lifted and eyes closed.

[nova-dracomon]

Why do you look like me, Beta Blaziken?

(I posted this to Dreamwidth but never posted it to Tumblr, enjoy!)

Author: Kab Written: January 5th, 2025 Word Count: 1,539

An essay about my experiences realizing that I'm actually a beta Pokemon after phantom limbs and form just happened to match up to leaked concept art of Blaziken.

My system has a lot of beta Pokemon - Pokemon or earlier designs that were once considered during the development process but got left on the chopping block. Headmates who are Beta Pokemon were even among the first headmates we identified back in 2016. I'm not even the only one of us drafting an essay.

I didn't consider myself a part of the beta Pokemon group for most of my self awareness. I first identified myself in 2020 or so as a rooster-like gryphon. My appearance as I drew it and identified was sort of like the Pokemon Blaziken, but not quite. I didn't have much of a reason to question Blaziken at the time.

What things even more complicated for my self discovery was that I realized I existed during a phase of our system where we were trying to avoid discovering or acknowledging any new fictives. I got caught up with feeling like I had to be a standard, totally original gryphon with no weird fictional identity about me and certainly not another damn Pokemon to add to the majority they already have.

So no reason to question it because I'm totally normal.

Besides, the closest fictional species to me at the time was a Blaziken, and surely I wasn't anything close to that, right?

We had two different versions of Blaziken we knew of that would be equally likely to exist in our system. The one on the left is the beta Blaziken that was shown in shared concept art in the early 2000s that was given the fan nickname "Latiken", and the right is the final version of Blaziken.

Neither of these fit how I perceive myself or what phantom limbs I have. While the final has the larger amount of plumage and tail, it's missing the wings. While the prototype sort of has the wings, they aren't feathery like mine and my legs don't move like that pose.

Because of all that, I never considered myself to be a Blaziken. There were similarities and Latiken was a beta Pokemon my system had questioned having years ago (and we theorized we had a Torchic at some point in childhood, and that was probably me too in retrospect), but a lack of consistent phantom limbs and still years away from trying to unlearn the shame of having so many weird Pokemon kept us from exploring it. By the time I finally hit my point of self awareness we had no reason to think I might be a beta Blaziken.

The closest I got to something clicking in me before I saw any further concept art was the Pokedex entries we got during the 2020 Nintendo gigaleak. No Pokemon designs or visuals to speak of, just early text (that wasn't even translated until months later). Here's what we got for Blaziken -

"By flapping its wings, it generates high-temperature Heat Waves that turn plant matter into char. It can barely see in dark areas."

This was the first time our system and I started to think of a concept of a more modern Blaziken with wings, but there was no images with these dex entries, so we could only guess. In the state we were in with our identities when this leak happened, we probably wouldn't have connected the dots if it hit us in the face anyway.

Then a few years later we get to October of 2024. Gamefreak had a massive leak that hit the holy grail of beta content for my system - the Ruby and Sapphire prototype builds.

While combing through all the sprites (and trying to survive a hurricane at the same time), we were excited to see Latiken in some official-looking, cleaned up way. We even finally got an official name for this beta form with "Elhawk".

While this looks much closer to how I feel than its concept art with that thicker plumage and the sharper-looking beak, it's still not quite enough to make me question-

Oh. Well okay.

This was the concept art that made it start to click. There's a Blaziken with the features I have of Blaziken and Elhawk and the feathery wings that was missing from both of them.

I started to experience myself more vividly as I questioned this. My phantom limbs and my movements became clearer, I could feel like I had that sharp beak and larger amounts of head plumage, and I had my feathery wings but not quite the urge to fly like some of the avians in my system do. I'm not trying to force myself to avoid being a Pokemon anymore.

I began to embrace a bit more that I exist in the system too. I felt more confident in who I am to front more - and it helps my system has been working on dealing with the shame and awkwardness we've been feeling about being a system.

This art isn't a perfect 1:1 of who I am and there are some features I know that I have that aren't a match with this concept art (namely I can switch between quadrapedal and bipedal), and I think something more accurate might be an in between with this design and Elhawk, but aside from that this is pretty damn close. Odds are there probably is a bit of concept art or sprite scratchpad somewhere that match what I look like. Hell, I think as a little Torchic I probably looked closer to the unfinished concept sketches that were officially shown instead of the more finalized-looking concepts, so that wouldn't be too big of a stretch for me to be a closer match to a random development doodle instead of something that was more seriously considered later down the road.

Even if the art or sprite I'm looking for doesn't exist, I don't need that confirmation. I feel confident enough to say that I'm a Blaziken and finding an exact match be damned I'm still pretty close. Who I am could get hard delegitimized at any time (which even happened to another Betamon headmate during a leak!) and we could somehow learn that winged Blaziken is the only piece of concept art ever made for between Elhawk and Blaziken, but that would be okay.

My experiences would have been a lot easier if I just accepted my identity as an in between prototype and final Blaziken sooner and embraced the parts of my phantom limbs or form that didn't seem to make sense even if we never got that concept art or if that concept art never existed.

It's a bit of a chicken (ha!) or the egg situation. I don't know how I developed in this system. It probably happened when I was a hatchling and I was too young to remember that. It could be a coincidence or our brain subconsciously recognizing patterns (especially for a system who had a heavy special interest in beta Pokemon and the development of Pokemon since we were like 9), or even a "fictionkin destiny" thing or any handful of theories about spiritual fictionkin could apply here. I do not have an explanation for how this happened (I don't even identify on the spiritual/psychological binary at all, headmate or 'kin) and I don't think it's as important as how I experience this identity and how I explore this identity.

Having a fiction-based identity in general, whether fictionkin/fictive or even fictionlink or fictionhearted, can be complicated when you get into the meta nature of fiction. All of this was created and developed by another person or people at some point. The way you interpret their work might be different from theirs or it might be very close. You can guess and latch onto the parts that changed during the development.

There's also some awkwardness around it. This art and development work wasn't obtained in the most ethical ways, and employees got doxxed for it while private developer logs were shown to the public (with people wildly misinterpreting it - looking at the leaked mythology documents especially). I wish this concept art and these builds were shown consensually and maybe even with actual commentary for people who are curious, but now that it's out in the open it's hard for me not to look at it and appreciate the process that fiction goes through to get made and have these realizations about myself.

It makes me a lot more aware of my place as a fictionkin. This was made by a real person and given feedback by a team of people. My feelings on it are the final design turned out pretty cool, but my mind or soul preferred the unfinished ones that were forgotten about.

And that's what I think being a beta Pokemon is to me. Some fictionfolk are tied to the meta of fiction in other ways, but my tie is to the development of it and the rough parts of fiction. A final Blaziken might feel a connection to the finished world and the exploration of it, but I'm in the rough pixels and sketches of people trying to figure out what Blaziken was even supposed to be in the first place. I represent what could have been.

[nova-dracomon]

list of resources about alterhumanity!

alterhumanarchive.neocities.org "is an ever-expanding collection of information, writings, and creations meant to function as a community resource and memory bank."

anotherwiki.org "is the free encyclopedia written by, for, and about the Otherkin community." primarily focuses on otherkin and therian identities.

thehornedgate.wordpress.com or Beyond Awakening is a collection of essays and stories about alterhuman identities by those who experience them.

beyondhumanity.net "was created as a resource for those curious about alterhumans and/or questioning an identity, to dispel misconceptions, and to provide an online space for [the creators] writings."

alt-h.net "began as a tumblr blog dedicated to content and articles on alterhumanity. [...], and it was the growth of the community here that began to push us towards our current goal of alterhuman advocacy."

obscurities.sonverrid.org "is a project & site for content, mainly writings, about personal animality from therians, otherkin, & other alterhumans, but for animal types that are uncommon or rare in those communities."

fromfiction-archive.rookerystudios.com is, like name suggests, an archive focused on fiction folk and fictional identities.

and a list of every site relating to alterhumanity, one way or other:

luunaathh.dreamwidth.org/The Directory of Nonhuman Spaces "I have compiled a directory of every single nonhuman/otherkind/alterhuman/etc site which currently exists on the internet. This list is inclusive of every alterhuman/otherkin identity which is currently defined." writes the creator. It lists forums, discord servers and more!

For more sites, make sure to browse Beyond Humanity and The Directory of Nonhuman Spaces, listed above!

[nova-dracomon]

Midnight burn

[nova-dracomon]

Saguaro redraw from some years back! good ol long cactus

[nova-dracomon]

3 Heads One Brain Cell

Why am I here? 1/2

This strip is just a concise way of saying I keep trotting and thankfully have headmates to remind me to finish tasks and wtf I'm doing. - Hortense

Who are these people? Check out our website to learn about us and our other project.

Prev - Next

[nova-dracomon]

We hope you don't mind Soul, but we made a gift icon back for you of your black hawk-eagle linktype!

I saw you were open for alterhuman identity requests (thank you for offering these btw!). I just awakened to an Ethiopian wolf vaguetype, could I request a drawing of one? - Hortense

Hello, here you go. We've never actually drawn one before, so we hope we did it justice.

[THIS IS A REQUEST, DO NOT USE UNLESS YOU ARE THE INTENDED RECIPIENT]

Program: Firealpaca Approx. Time: 40m Original Date: 14.04.25 Commission/Trade/Collab status in bio/pinned! Art Of: Ethiopian Wolf vaguetype of @ruffledgryphon (System Member Artist: Soul)

[nova-dracomon]

I saw you were open for alterhuman identity requests (thank you for offering these btw!). I just awakened to an Ethiopian wolf vaguetype, could I request a drawing of one? - Hortense

Hello, here you go. We've never actually drawn one before, so we hope we did it justice.

[THIS IS A REQUEST, DO NOT USE UNLESS YOU ARE THE INTENDED RECIPIENT]

Program: Firealpaca Approx. Time: 40m Original Date: 14.04.25 Commission/Trade/Collab status in bio/pinned! Art Of: Ethiopian Wolf vaguetype of @ruffledgryphon (System Member Artist: Soul)