nova-dracomon

[nova-dracomon]

3 Heads One Brain Cell

Headspace 3 of 3

If you're sitting there wondering why the hell Bakugo just showed up, don't worry, we were just as surprised! We had a weirdly vivid series of dreams and suddenly had a soulbond.

This is definitely something we've been wanting to write about and share here, but we've been feeling like drawing instead. One day tho!

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

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[nova-dracomon]

At a con this weekend, meet our new son 🐉

[nova-dracomon]

Media Recommendations for Owlkind

This is by no means everything, just media we personally enjoyed! Not everything is specifically owl either, but they still had bird society vibes or (in the case of games) it was just neat to fly around as a birb.

Games

Feather

Ark Survival Evolved

Aer Memories of Old

Just Crow Things

Legend of the Guardians

Books

Gryphon Generation - Alexander Bizzell

Wabi - Joseph Bruchac

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy - Clive Woodall

Guardians of Ga'Hoole - Kathryn Lasky

Watchable

Lesley the Bird Nerd YT

Legend of the Guardians

Bonus

Tarot of the Owls - Pamela Chen & Elisabeth Alba

[nova-dracomon]

this is me in my hearthome. i tried to keep myself from going into too much detail, but i still managed to DRAW A WHOLE BACKGROUND for the FIRST TIME EVER.

:>

[nova-dracomon]

Life at the Great Tree

Guardian of Ga'Hoole moodboard

Niche Kin Appreciation Challenge

x | x | X | x | x

[nova-dracomon]

I like all the "I am a robot/dragon/creature" and variations but it inspired me to make a sort of universal option to reflect what's really being asked (or at least what we're pretending is being asked these days), for anyone of any species or no species. I'm too inconsistent to get more euphoria from "I am a [thing]" than something species-neutral

[nova-dracomon]

i appreciate the idea that gear can be anything you want it to be… like, i have a sweatshirt that i got recently from when we went to the mountains a few months ago, it’s dark green and has a detailed bear on it in the middle. to most people it would look pretty normal, just a person wearing a hoodie out in public! pretty basic stuff. but for me it’s more personal, i feel that it represents me in an important way. it’s attached to my identity on a much deeper level than anyone could really understand without asking. whenever i see myself wearing it, it makes me feel a little bit better about what i see in the mirror. sure, i am “human shaped”, but that doesn’t represent who i truly am on a deeper, more intimate level. what i am on the inside! it also keeps me warm when it’s cold so obviously that’s a plus haha. anyway, it’s important to me and that’s what matters, it makes me very happy to think about it. 🩵

[nova-dracomon]

[nova-dracomon]

Artfight attack by IrisTheDragon

The Great Ga'Hoole Tree

The Great Ga'Hoole Tree stands alone on the Island of Hoole in the Sea of Hoolemere, a symbol of goodness and nobility, a place of selfless deeds and heroism. Above all, it is my home. And I love it, with my heart and my gizzard. - Guardians of Ga’hoole: A Guidebook to the Great Tree

My vaguetype was hatched in the forest of Ambala, but came to call the Great Tree home.

Ga' means "great in spirit" and Hoole is the name of our first leader who planted the seeds that would become the Great Tree.

It's over 1,000 years old and is said to almost instinctively grow to best suit the needs of the owls living there. The tree is also known for being covered in vines that grow a berry seen nowhere else, milkberries! Like the name implies, they do indeed taste like milk and are a staple of cuisine at the tree. We even name the seasons based off the color the milkberries turn: silver rain(spring), golden rain (summer), copper-rose rain (autumn), and white rain (winter).

There's even an entire chaw dedicated to keeping our home in the best shape possible, and to study its unique properties: Ga'Hoolology.

Niche Kin Appreciation Challenge

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One week left to register!

Attendee Registrations are OPEN!

This form is to attend the Centaurus Festival convention on March 7th - 9th. This form will close on February 28th.

[nova-dracomon]

a sort of PSA, more an off-the-cuff musing

Being transgender or otherkin or asexual or really any other sort of personal identity is a choice. It’s just that, for most people, it’s the only choice.

We have experienced gender dysphoria for nearly as long as I can remember. Naturally, being transgender is the only choice to make here, but it was still a choice and we still had to make it. We had to decide to perceive ourselves with a masculine gender, and to assert that perception to others. I know now that it was the only sensible choice to make, because we are suffering significantly less in that regard now than we were before we made that choice.

We’ve experienced being more than one person in various ways for nearly as long as I can remember too. Perhaps in this case, choosing to be plural—choosing to use that particular framework—isn’t quite as necessary. We could in theory get by saying we’re a guy with memory issues who talks to itself a lot, I guess. It wouldn’t very well though, I don’t think. For that reason, I decide every day to be one person among many in this brain.

We met someone once who had chosen to be nonbinary, “for a change of pace.” It was honestly one of the coolest things ever. Perhaps a year or three before that, we heard many lies about what it means to be a trans man: that you must fit into one very specific model of gender dysphoria, that you must not have fun with your gender, that you cannot choose, and that people who do not fit this diagnosis-based, pseudoscientific mold are to be ridiculed.

The same lies are extremely popular now to tell about plurality and about therianthropy. It enrages me to my very core, seeing people repeat the same bullying that we witnessed then. If you cannot accept the reality of personal identity as a fluid thing that takes time and conscious effort, that involves joy and sorrow alike, and that has no room for diagnoses and checkboxes, you probably should rethink your entire worldview.

[nova-dracomon]

i'm still very early in doing the challenge, so i decided to re-do & expand on my [second] attempt at attempt at @who-is-page's folcintera writing challenge! this iteration goes in much better depth of my experiences.

🐾 DAY ONE 📜

What is your species? How do you experience aspects of your nonhumanity?

while my identity contains multitudes a number of different aspects [such as being Steven Universe & Shadow the Hedgehog], at the end of the day, i am physically & internally a beast. in practice, for me, this is similar to gender stuff. it's also kind of tied into my gender stuff, but that's another post for another time. my thought process is rather simple: "if i am an animal, my body is as well."

the initial name i had for this animal was "gulodae," but i'm currently work-shopping something new. it is a mustelidae beast; primarily resembling wolverines & fisher cats, with traits inspired by some mustelinae [stoats, weasels, minks] & martens.

alongside being an upright animal, i am a storyteller archetrope. being this affects all i do, all i am. my very nature is to weave narratives, worlds, cultures, regardless of my shape. it is truly the core of what i am, what i do, & what drives me. being a storyteller heavily affects my animality; it shapes my instinct, my mythos, my image. in turn, my animality heavily affects my storytelling; it shapes the lens & image of my art.

the gulodae is something of my own design; a coalesced name/title for my animality. it's is not an effort to hybridize or "reduce" my therianthropy. rather, it's part of the experience itself.

i grew up with animal stories, xenofiction, and always felt the strongest connection to the creature characters within those stories. in real-world social situations, i've always felt like an outlier - like i don't actually belong there, or that i'm "outside" of a given social dynamic. i'm the "person gets dragged to a party & befriends the house's cat" experience, except that i'm the cat.

i think that's why i was so drawn to the furry fandom. i've never felt more at home than i do with furry, because i think many others share that feeling of otherness & love/appreciation for animal characters. i only recently realized just how much of my animality has been shaped by furry culture - and how much my animality has shaped my furry experiences. a large part of the furry fandom is fursona crafting, and this hobby varies greatly between individuals. for some, a fursona is a one-to-one interpretation of themselves - just in animal form. for others, fursonas are more akin to "avatars" they use for self-expression, created from bits & pieces of theirself & expanded upon to the extreme. some people only have one fursona, others have a bunch.

i went through a lengthy questioning process with my animality. my fursonas throughout that time heavily reflect my mindset throughout this process; each one felt a step closer or further away from what i wanted for myself. furry is what inspired me to make a species for myself.

making this species & mythos has been & is something fun, introspective; it's an effort to cultivate a true sense of self for me & me alone.

[nova-dracomon]

I depend on you Me.

My version of the I depend on You Art Trend from Twitter; please do not reupload my art on other blogs or platforms

Im in a moment of my life where I have people I can trust & love, but not necessarily depend on for too much. Which has resulted in me trying to figure out a lot for myself; it can get lonely, but it means I depend on myself in unexpected ways.

And lately, my biggest supporter has been who I used to be.

—

The little filly who had no doubts, the biggest of dreams, and the deepest well of bravery n compassion; thats who I rely on most to guide me now. Thats who I need to become again.

That’s who I want to be again.

[nova-dracomon]

I have to admit. I like the "therian masks".

I like it as a trend on tiktok, esspecially for younger alterhumans.

BECAUSE IT CONSEALS THEIR IDENTITY.

Way too often before the trend i would see little kids plastering their face online. Announcing their age. Basically posting their location.

I knew people who got hurt from it.

Is it annoying that people think it's a "requirement" for therianthropy? Yeah.

But at least it's serving a better purpose of safety with an added benefit of species euphoria.

[nova-dracomon]

What they see

Is not

Who I am

[nova-dracomon]

We need to kill the idea that you can’t both be a “real” alterhuman and have fun. You don’t have to take yourself super seriously 100% of the time to be who you say you are. Experiencing joy and laughter and whimsy is a good thing, and it’s actually far healthier to seek those over community validation through performing the “correct” amount of stoicism and misery.

[nova-dracomon]

What exactly does a para-hearthome entail? How is that experienced?

Well, parahearthome kind of isn't a real term right now; someone off-handedly used the term in a question about whether that could be a thing or if it might have another word during the Q&A after my Othercon panel on hearthomes this year, and that's kind of that on that.

The idea is essentially, a world, place, setting, etc. that evokes strong feelings in you specifically because it's similar to your actual hearthome. For example, if your hearthome is Dinotopia, other settings with humans and dinosaurs living side-by-side may trigger similar feelings because they're similar to Dinotopia, but not enough so for them to be hearthomes on their own (or to expand the definition of your hearthome to a broader "dinosaur-human societies" or similar). Currently, there's not a great term for that; parahearthome is a bit of a mouthful, and I'm considering suggesting just parahome to the community at large? But I'm not sure I love that, and I haven't come up with anything better just yet.