#I don’t know if that applies but just in case

[who-is-page]

Greener Grasses and Fossilized Paw Prints: Where (and Why) the Greymuzzles Go

Author: Page Type: Essay Words: 1,229 Summary: Page's personal experience as an adult canine psychopomp, and how it applies to the dearth of older otherkin in general alterhuman community spaces. Answering the question of: where are all the older otherkin? And why do people always seem to eventually leave? Author's Note: The term "greymuzzle" is used within the scope of this essay's title to reference older otherkin who have been active in alterhuman spaces for extended periods of time (a nod to the word's original definition within furry spaces), and is not referring to greymuzzle's most frequent definition in alterhuman groups as a community-given term denoting an individual with noteworthy activity and contribution.

[Part of the Sol System’s Alterhuman Writing Project for 2024. If you don’t want to see these posts, block the tag #inkedclaws]

When I was a young otherkin, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, I found it difficult to conceptualize why there was such a dearth of older community members, especially those 30 and above. I could understand the theoretics behind the disparity, of course— social media platforms, as we all know, tend to skew towards younger audiences due to generational differences in technological proficiency/preference. Established adults with working lives and families don’t necessarily have the same amount of free-time that young adults or teenagers do, either. But even with all that taken into account, it seemed like the number of otherkin aged 13-21 in comparison to the number of otherkin aged 30+ was less a gradual decline and more an unfathomable chasm of difference. The community had been around for decades at that point, with plenty of ghost town groups and abandoned forums to demonstrate that fact… and unless the Veil was secretly age-restricted, those people hadn’t up and disappeared into thin air. So where were people going? And, more importantly, why?

It was a question I’d never been able to answer in a way that felt satisfactory as a teenager and later as a young adult. But now, feeling the call of the void myself, I finally do have an answer and an understanding that I never could have achieved five or ten years ago: why the fuck would I be online when I could be playing video games or having sex with my hot partners instead?

It’s a crude and simplistic way to put it, but just hear me out. As an established adult, I have access to funds, stability, and freedom that I never had as a teenager or even as a young adult who still felt at the mercy of an uncaring universe’s slightest whims. My support systems in high school and college suffered from the same sort of financial and social precariousness that come with the territory of navigating the world as a young adult, but my support systems now are made up of other established adults; while I’ll never say that everything is always perfect for all of us, it’s much easier to get on your feet and stay on your feet when your arms are linked with people who are more firmly rooted in one way or another. I have access to a type of freedom that I could never have imagined as a teenager, because it was literally outside of the range of what was possible for me and my peers.

And more than just that freedom is the fact that I, as an adult, have a family! “Having a family” has, in my experience, some shitty, heteronormative connotations. As a teen, I always took it at face value as juggling bills, kids, white picket fence, other boring responsibilities that eat up your time, etc. But as an adult, now I know that having a family can be anything you make of it, and I make it extremely, obnoxiously queer. In my case, it’s living with people who understand me on a deep, foundational level, and who love me not in spite of who I am but because of who (and what) I am. It’s not passively being around those people; it’s actively, enthusiastically spending time with them because it’s fun and because I love them too and because they’re my people and I picked them and they picked me. As a kid, I’d never consciously recognized the difference between people you’re passively around because you have to be versus people you intentionally choose to be around and who intentionally choose you right back. In part, this is because as a kid you often don’t get the option to make that choice, while as an adult you have more control over your environment. Too often online environments feel like the former, rather than the latter, even if being within them is, technically, a choice. But here, now, I have people in my household who will go out of their way to intersect their daily lives with mine and ask, “You wanna walk to the park?” “You wanna grab a coffee?” or “You HAVE to see this YouTube essay I’m watching and no I don’t care that it’s 4 hours long on a topic you know nothing about, just trust me!!!!!” and that’s such a radically different and wonderful experience.

As an adult, I live with a group of people who make being alive more fun than I could have ever imagined. I have the ability to make my own fun in ways I couldn’t as a kid, for a variety of reasons. I don’t have to feel like an anxious purse chihuahua 24/7, agonizing over my existence and every possible thing that is liable to go wrong if I frivolously spend money on so much of the thought of a hot coffee. And I finally, finally understand why older otherkin disappear off the face of the Earth. It’s because being an adult nonhuman-identifying person is amazing in a way almost no one ever talks about: the euphoric experience of being known and loved, and of knowing and loving yourself.

There are so many exciting and wonderful things I could be doing in the meatspace with people I have actively chosen to spend my life with, and who fully accept and understand me as someone who’s queer, plural, and nonhuman. There’s so many enriching ways I could be engaging with my hobbies, the environment around me, and my local community. With this all in mind, why the fuck would I ever be in public online spaces where people try to argue with me about whether or not I exist, or if my experiences are real, or if I’m using the right and latest lingo to describe my experiences? Why would I subject myself to that when I could just roll my eyes, close the laptop, and go be a beloved canine psychopomp in the comfort of my werehouse instead?

That’s the crux of it. As adults with families and support networks, we have the option to not subject ourselves to the morifying ordeal of being known by asshole strangers online if we don’t want to. We can stick to just our families and our friend groups, and we will still have people around us who understand and who acknowledge and interact with our alterhumanity. The alterhuman community isn’t the only or even most important place for being our authentic selves; rather, it takes a backseat in the day-to-day life. It’s still something that’s fulfilling and worthwhile to engage with, but only on our own terms (terms that are quickly becoming incompatible with the ways Internet culture is evolving). But more often than not, there’s just more fun things to do.

In some ways, it’s kind of a relief to have had this epiphany. People haven’t vanished from alterhuman community spaces because they collectively ‘grew out of it’ like some anti-otherkin insist, or because the various generations of otherkin are so extraordinarily different from one another as to be oil-and-water. People vanish from online alterhuman spaces because offline life as an adult alterhuman is awesome. As an archivist it’s frustrating, but as a nonhuman, I find it a specific type of happiness that’s worth celebrating in its existence and prevalence. It’s an assurance that life only gets better as you get older: isn’t that grand?

[pinkpoweredpunk]

I went ranting to Bede over text about the recent dark/fairy/psychic/ghost type discourse going on here lately and he had a LOOOT of opinions but he specifically wanted me to share this fact about the Hatterene line to you guys cause it’s especially important to him:

the “Hatterene attacking people for their emotions thing” almost ONLY happens with wild ones and even then it’s extremely rare. someone’s trained Hatterene isn’t going to kill you because you got overly excited or depressed around it. and in the case of it being a wild one? Hatterene and their pre-evos live so far away from human civilization BECAUSE they can’t handle the extreme wave of various emotions, if a town sprouts up they’re smart enough to move away. if one attacks you it’s because you’re feeling strong emotions on their turf which is very likely in the middle of nowhere.

they developed this ability so they can detect adrenaline rising in predators attempting to sneak up on them or their young, or sense when one of their own is in danger. when they’re faced with the complexity of human emotions they panic, don’t know what to do, and lash out.

a lot of this happened in much earlier days when humans were only just starting to settle around places in Galar where Hatterene and their pre-evos lived, it was just an unfortunate misunderstanding between humans and wildlife that instead of figuring out a compromise calmly, the humans decided to vilify the Hatterene for. either way it HARDLY applies to modern day.

in short, a lot of you people need to get more normal about Pokémon with behaviors that aren’t always convenient to humans.

[justkillingthyme]

honestly i agree with your fags on the post abt randall. even tho im not a fan of him i think ppl are too hung up on his actions as a teen versus the issues with him in the actual present day story. it would be interesting to see more of your take on him bc i agree hes one of the more complicated cases even if my opinion on him is pretty negative

Cracks my fucking knuckles. I want to preface that my take on Randall is heavily influenced by someone else and that I haven’t played MM in forever. I’m going off my shit memory and vibes here.

Randall, as a teenager, is incredibly emotionally immature. He’s reckless, selfish, doesn’t take other’s feelings into consideration, etc. That much is true. Personally I think he has audhd which contributes to his lack of awareness on other’s feelings unless there’s an outright display. He’s passionate and wants to display and get others into his interests. He drags Hershel along on adventures, gives him puzzles, etc. We don’t know enough about their relationship to say exactly how this all started or anything, but Hershel notes in his journal that he does actually like adventure. Even if Randall is forcing him to come along, it’s not entirely one sided.

Hershel has his own problems with self expression and his identity, none too helped by The Trauma. He seems pretty weak willed, backing down when Randall presses, but we do see him speak up for Angela. He is capable of saying no and being stern, but he does usually go along with what Randall does. Because he likes it. He likes adventure and puzzles and exploring.

At first going to Gressenheller was a tribute to Randall’s lost future, but if he truly hated it, he wouldn’t act the way he does in the present.

I think Randall has a tough time with boundaries. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile. That, I believe, can also be attributed to his childhood. (Disregarding conflicting information), Randall is an only child that grew up in a wealthy household. His father seems to be somewhat cold with him, and his mother (at least during MM), seems to be coddling in the way Angela and Henry turn out to be. He grew up with Henry as his best friend. Henry his servant who isn’t allowed to do anything but what Randall wants.

He’s got a one track mind, and everything else gets pushed to the side. Other people included. He doesn’t consider that Angela might be upset with him until she’s breaking down and comparing Randall to her brother. Even then, he comforts her just enough for him to return to his task. Hershel calls him out here, because he’s being an ass. Henry stepping in de-escalated the situation, but I don’t think he was planning on actually stopping post-Akbadain. Impulse control is at an all time low at 16-18 years old, and he hasn’t stopped attention seeking behaviors. Adolescents also have a personal fable, the belief that consequences won’t apply to him. He thinks that he will be the exception.

This again brings us back to his father. A good portion of Randall’s desire for greatness stem from feeling insignificant. He wants to prove himself, whether that be to his father or others in town, not mentioning that Dalston feeds into those feelings. His feelings on Henry (that his father likes Henry more) are totally fucked, but it’s just how he perceives it. He wants to be worth it, and he wants other people to see him as worth it.

I think even if he got out of Akbadain alive, the glory wouldn’t be enough for him. Once you attain your goal you’re always going to be dissatisfied etc etc. He’s the kind of guy to always want more.

I’m going to put the present day stuff in a rb I think. This was pretty long already

[anamericangirl]

I found this reblogged by an artist I follow and really, really like, not just as an artist, but as a person.

She's even called my her friend before.

She also has this in her pinned post: "This is a safe place for everyone to enjoy what they want without judgement. I don't mind who enjoys my content and who does not." I kinda figured that might have been a lie because a lot of people who claim they're "tolerant" are really only tolerant to people they already agree with, but I couldn't know for sure if that was true in this case or not.

I'm honestly genuinely really upset and don't know what to do. :'( Any advice?

It’s become pretty obvious over the last few years that anyone who describes their blog as a “safe place” means that it’s a safe place for left wing minorities who all have the same opinions and don’t have to worry about the mean scary conservatives so anytime I see a message like that I pretty much immediately know it doesn’t apply to me and that the person who wrote it will not like me.

And like you’ve seen, most of the time they don’t even mean because they turn right around and post the most mean spirited judgmental things without even hearing people out and trying to make them feel bad and unwelcome. It’s incredibly hypocritical.

Now, it’s a lot harder to move past that when it’s someone you’re close to or consider a friend. Like I can deal with people calling me Nazis all day long but when it comes from someone in my family it hurts a little bit. So I understand being caught off guard and feeling upset. It’s a really mean message.

Right now tensions are still really high. It’s only two days since the election and the Kamala voters are still dealing with the fact that they lost. They’re upset and angry and we all already know the only way they deal with their problems and emotions is by lashing out at those around them.

If it were me, I might give her some time to calm down. If she is able to move on from this I’m sure she’ll go back to her once pleasant self and you might even be able to gently approach her on the subject. People need to understand it’s not ok to talk about others like that just because you’re mad.

If this is a friendship that’s important to you then don’t give up on it. Just try to be patient, kind and understanding and be living proof that she’s wrong. On the other hand, if you don’t think she is the kind of person who will see reason and is going to live out the behavior of that post you are not obligated to subject yourself to such treatment because you don’t deserve it.

[busiest-bee]

I’m scared to post this but if I don’t I’ll beat myself up about it. Fuck it we ball

I’ve been trying to put my emotions into words All day. But then I remembered. Oh right yeah. I can just. Say It.

Anyways Me being a loser (vent? I don’t know) under the cut

(Cool divider made by me using some splatoon assets I got off the wiki btw :•3 )

(This is kinda long. Way longer than I originally wanted. So super sorry about that)

Anyways for a little while now I’ve been considering that I Might be some form of nonhuman/otherkin. Specifically a shapeshifter, but dogs, cats (both big and small), wolves, and bears are things I relate to heavily as well. (Not sure “relate” is the best term for what I feel but ehh I’m having a hard enough time with this as is) The dog, wolf, and cat parts are because of the kind of shapeshifter I..am?? That feels kinda crazy to say (and saying THAT is giving me some serious self doubt. But as they say, Fuck It We Ball).

Edit (8-24-24)- adding in cuz I just remembered: some visual similarities to lizards/reptiles so throw a little bit of That in the mix idk

Anyways yea the type of shapeshifter I’m talking about is actually a species I’ve been Sorta developing over a couple years now, it’s all come about pretty naturally tho. It’s basically just my brain saying “hey I Hate these parts of being a human. Let’s do something else” idk how to word it. So the kind of shapeshifter I am is more so based on what I hate about my irl body. That definitely plays into my gender dysphoria, and vice versa.

The bear part I feel less strong about, but it makes sense I guess. That came around when I had an intense hyperfixation on Splatoon. My favorite character is Mr.Grizz. Who is a bear. That hyperfixation was also the catalyst for me trying tinned fish!! (This is important to me bcuz I’m an Incredibly picky eater. Not fully relevant to the rest of this but Oh Well. I’m already oversharing on the internet in an attempt to come to terms with my identity, why not share a fun fact, Yknow?) Ever since that I’ve also felt very strongly about salmon. My favorite fish (I didn’t have a favorite fish beforehand) is sockeye salmon I LOVE them. They’re beautiful. They’re poetic. I want to eat them. Also my current layout (as of writing this) is splatoon themed. Specifically Salmon Run and golden eggs. I love the way the world of splatoon makes me feel. I want to be completely immersed in it. Golden eggs look so tasty and are so gender I HAVE to eat them.

I don’t know if this is a kin thing or if I’m just thinking too hard about it (that could apply to this entire post but eh) but I also relate (again, maybe not the “correct” term but I’m working with what my brain has so shh) to Chara from Undertale. Idk something about a little kid falling down into a mountain full of monsters, being adopted by said monsters, and giving themself up just to try saving them…their cannonical distaste of humans…something about them as a character really feels so intensely Me. I don’t think I Am Chara, but. Idk. This is all very new to me (admitting that I feel these things at least. I’ve been consuming some kin content for a while now. It’s fun!! Love moodboards and stimboards so much they’re so fun)

And maybe, if anyone has even read this far, u might be asking “bee! Your name is Bee! Your account name is bee themed!! Are u a little honey making freakazoid out to get lost in the pollen sauce?”

To which I say:

All jokes aside. I don’t know man. Bees are very me, I am very bees, but I tried looking at bee kin/therian posts and i couldn’t really relate as well as i hoped. Although I might’ve just not scrolled down enough to find something that I really deeply felt in my gut. So just. Think of me like a fancy car (except creature) with a cool bee themed skin or something idk. (To be fair itd make more than enough sense for me to be a..kin?? Therian?? I don’t know. Of a bee. I have so many bee things. One day I will have more)

I’m still unsure of labels, if anything I just prefer the term nonhuman, gets the point across without being too specific, and doesn’t give me any of the bad icky feelings that make me feel like I’m lying no matter what I do or say.

Anyways yeah this was long and dumb and honestly? I’m terrified to post it. Ive been struggling to get my words out all day and I’ve been posting like a madman. But I guess using my social media as an outlet for all my emotions I otherwise wouldn’t really have anywhere to put will do that.

Sorry if none of this made any sense, I’m really trying to not only understand myself, but also to then Describe that understanding to other people. And I’ve never been very good at having people understand me.

If I end up realizing I was wrong I will promptly dig a hole in the ground and let nature overtake me and cover me in moss

(Also just a note: if anyone sees this, Reads this, and decides to like. Reply or reblog with words of encouragement/understanding or really Anything. I might not reply bcuz I have really bad social anxiety, especially on the internet. But trust me when I say that I read everything people say in the tags of reblogs, comments/replies, all of it. It’s all greatly appreciated, it really truly is.)

(Cool ass Mr.Grizz divider made by me with an asset from the Nintendo online app in Wandercrust I think. Though I believe all the pics u can get from that are also on the wiki) (I should make a salmon themed divider holy shit)

[turtleblogatlast]

One of the biggest things that makes me see Leo as trans is absolutely the size of his carapace in comparison to his brothers’.

And I’m not talking about height! I’m specifically looking at his shell here, because when you compare him to the others, particularly Donnie who is nearly the same height as Leo, it’s very clear that Leo’s carapace is much longer in proportion to the rest of his body.

Like - standing side by side, even though Donnie is shorter his carapace ends noticeably higher up than Leo’s does. And I like this not only because it really helps push the idea that Leo could very likely be trans (or intersex!), but it’s also just a fun design difference between them.

(It also lends way to future scenarios of Donnie eventually getting taller than Leo, but sitting down still has Leo being the taller one haha.)

[unspuncreature]

trans men please please please keep up with your pelvic health. find a provider who will listen to you and see you as you are. you have the right to good quality and affirming care

get your annual physical exam. regular std testing. pap smears. all of it

[binders-and-beanies]

I like how one of the go-to examples people give of high and low support needs is whether or not you can ride the bus by yourself. But then when I as a disabled person say I absolutely cannot ride the bus by myself, I’m not believed. Bc that would indicate an Actually For Realsies Serious disability and no one believes those exist (until it’s time to make fun of someone or discredit them etc)

[mifhortunach]

.

[perhaps-mr-collins-has-a-cousin]

Hello praying people, I'm not doing well and would really appreciate your prayers right now <3

[seilon]

pro: ran into a coworker at a bar last night who I don’t really talk to usually (he works upstairs, I work downstairs) and we talked and im pretty sure we were highkey flirting and he bought me a drink and the bar merch shirt i was interested in and thanks to the power of alcohol i guess i asked for his number and he gladly gave it to me and. yeah

con: i have the second worst hangover i have ever had and have been fighting for my fucking life just to eat saltines

[edwardseymour]

“She was a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon for several years alongside Anne Boleyn, so she would've witnessed the way Anne held Henry off for so long by pleading her virginity. She watched, and she learned. There is a famous tale of how Jane was picking out items for her wedding to the king, while Anne awaited her execution in the Tower. If true, it would show sprinklings of a cold heart. [...] I wonder if Jane was reminiscing over these events, as she was dying of child-bed fever, and if so, what her thoughts on them were. Did she pray for forgiveness for the part she played? I like to believe that she did, given how spiritual she was known to be.”

abfiles comments writing fanfic fantasising about jane seymour in moments of terrible duress!

[prettygirlgerard]

99% of lgbt discourse over the past 5 years is just teenagers with a specific insecurity that they want to make everyone’s problem

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Uh-oh. This is bad

[actualnymph]

I want to live in a big city but! I don’t want to live in New York, Chicago, Denver, Boston, or Sanfran 😭

[starlooove]

No bc Jon makes me SO SAD like idk man the fact that it isn’t even just someone who looks like his dad but technically WAS his dad that did all that to him like imagine him having a nightmare or smth and Clark goes to help him out cause obviously and Jon gets MORE scared bc the person he’s looking at isn’t his dad who’d die before hurting him, but his captor of YEARS back in his room