#alterhuman writing challenge

[mountain--bones]

4/11: They Lament, But We Rejoice

(Some personal ramblings which also can function as day 1 of the Sol System's Alterhuman Writing Challenge!)

While I was showering yesterday I, as I often do, got lost in thought. I was thinking about myself and the path my life has taken, and how I've learned to relate to myself in a holistic way – flaws and all.

As I was thinking, I remembered some lyrics to a song I'd heard, but I couldn't remember the rest of the song or what it was called.

"'Cause when I saw my demons I knew them well and welcomed them"

This idea resonates with me a lot. Partially, it resonates in terms of my personality; I try my very best to accept the flaws in myself, and find the value in what they represent and connect to in my holistic self.

But, even more so, it's very easy to see my nonhuman self in this. I've come to understand that I am, at my core, something monstrous. I've related that inner, spiritual self to many different things before – a deity, an eldritch beast, an ancient spirit – but one of the first things I found myself thinking of it as was a demon.

I didn't think of it as demonic in a religious sense; it was more that it struck me as deeply, almost intrinsically adversarial to many of the things which are valued in the mainstream spirituality of western culture. It was chaos, animality, instinct, decomposition, death. And so: a demon.

When I found my demon, I knew it well, and welcomed it.

Given the melody of the song, it was pretty clear that the intended message was not one of radical reclamation of a self that would conventionally be considered abhorrent. So then I was curious – what's it really about?

And that's what made this so impactful and fascinating to me.

The song is The Lament of Eustace Scrubb, by the Oh Hellos.

Eustace Scrubb. If there's any character that stands out as an impactful early influence on my nonhumanity, it's Eustace Scrubb. But what's funny is how for me (and I'm sure a lot of other nonhuman folks), Eustace Scrubb is a character who represented an enigma – a contradiction to something which I so fervently craved.

For those who aren't familiar, Eustace Scrubb is a character from the Chronicles of Narnia whose selfishness led him to be turned into a dragon. And he hates it. He's so miserable about being a dragon instead of the boy he's meant to be. I couldn't understand it as a kid. Why would he hate being a dragon? Why would he want to be human?

The Lament of Eustace Scrubb is a song which was symbolically inspired by the struggle of this character – a lament about the loss of some valuable, sacred aspect of humanity, beneath layers of flaws and faults.

Here's the full lyrics.

Brother, forgive me We both know I'm the one to blame 'Cause when I saw my demons I knew them well and welcomed them I knew them well and welcomed them

But I'll come around I'll come around

Father, have mercy I know that I have gone astray 'Cause when I saw my reflection It was a stranger beneath my face It was a stranger beneath my face

But I'll come around I'll come around Someday

When I touch the water They tell me I could be set free

It's very easy, given context, to see the Christian themes here – especially given than the Chronicles of Narnia are also a deeply, explicitly Christian work.

But that just makes it more interesting how, reading these lyrics in the way I naturally want to in spite of the context, I find a meaning in them that's entirely opposite to what's intended – one that's positive and healing.

When I saw my demons, I knew them well and welcomed them.

When I saw the parts of myself that were unacceptable in society's eyes, instead of shunning them, I reached out. I offered them a welcoming hand. To embrace myself in a genuine way has always been more important than following along with what I'm told is "right".

Brother, forgive me – humanity, forgive me – because when I saw the monster inside me, I turned from humanity without a second thought, and without a single regret. The "demon" in me opened my eyes, set me free from rules and structures and beliefs which I never belonged or fit within.

I chose the monster over my humanity. I don't need humanity to forgive me for that, but there's something striking about the idea of regret. Not the regret of my path, or who I am; just a quiet regretfulness to betray something which utterly needed to be betrayed.

'Cause when I saw my reflection It was a stranger beneath my face

My reflection shows a human face. The stranger underneath – the self that I had never been allowed to be. It was a stranger to me, at first. I didn't know myself, because I had never been taught how to. I'd been taught how to speak and how to act, and all that ever amounted to was layers and layers of masks, obscuring the heart of me underneath them.

The grief here, for me, isn't that the stranger is inhuman. The grief is that the deepest part of me, that lay beneath the facade, was a stranger. That I didn't recognise my true self underneath, because it was hidden by the body showed in my reflection, and all the different ways I'd been taught to act as I "should" in a body like this.

When I touch the water They tell me I could be set free

A reflection in a pool. The surface shows a human face, but there's something stranger underneath it.

Touch the water. Break the reflection. Free the you which you've never let yourself be.

See what I'm saying here?

It's striking because this is so completely not what is intended by the lyrics of this song, and yet it forms such a meaningful picture of what nonhumanity is to me. It's striking because, like the story of Eustace Scrubb, there's joy and freedom and actualisation found in a concept that is presented as, and intended to be, something horrible.

The inhumanity is supposed to be a curse.

But for me, embracing my nonhuman self – welcoming my demons, the stranger in my reflection – was a release from a curse that I didn't know I was burdened with.

There's something deeply poignant in here for me. Something which felt worth writing about.

[that-dreaming-dragon]

Media Representation and (a rant on) Draconity

I think it's natural to want to find something within the media that represent and reflects yourself. As a dragon, the option might seem like quite a few within various sources of media, but the realities are that I and my various alterhuman identities are not the typical or commonly seen dragons.

As myself, I'm orange, furred, white feathered wings, yellow horns, and the vibrant red belly. Those are not things you find common in animals, even amongst birds, that's some colors that don't exactly flow together. People drawn inspiration from around their world to create, people are also creature of comfort and habit--with the idea of dragon being "fire breathing, bat winged, scaly lizard" or "scale with mane, elemental control and sometimes deity, serpentine wyrm", and then variations based off of that, perhaps scaled beast with feathery wings, or great furred wyrm with webbed wings and fire breathing. Seriously what is with the fire breathing? Have I mention that I'm a shapeshifting sort of dragon? While that is often tied to the eastern sort of draconic beings, my exact combination of dragons are far and few in between. Even the dutch angel dragon within the furry community has certain limitation and character traits that don't align with me. If I hadn't got turned off by the idea of looking anywhere or being misidentify as a horse, I might have find myself drawn to the dutch angel dragon as a sort of maybe paratype, or just friendly dragons that I share similar traits with. But alas.

Every single piece of media or fictional source that has a representation I can find brings me joy. Games centered on collecting dragons like Flight Rising or Dragon Cave does a great job of acknowledging that diversity. I get especially grumpy when dragon maker only has webbed wings and scaly body. At one point I really did not want to put the 3D dragon maker by Dragonita on my Alterhuman Shifts and Self Discovery Tools guide (ohh, guess I finally got a name). You can call me petty however you want, but I was not very happy of something that denies my existence. I'm a strong advocate for draconic diversity, because I am not alone in being "unusual" sort of dragons. Nobody should feel like this, unseen. Dealing with the constant "he or she" as someone nonbinary is more than enough, thank you very much. I feel like as alterhuman, hell, even just within the confine of draconic community or even smaller the dragonkind community, there should be a sort of basic understanding that "dragon" is a abstract term. Like "what is human", "what is dragon" should be a default and nobody gets to decide who is or isn't dragon. To touch back onto what I wrote on Day 1 of this challenge, alterhumanity is a experience, it is a feeling, it is vague and abstract, it is something you know within your essence, or one day you will awaken to it. A dragon is all of that. I did end up finally putting the 3d builder on my guide. I will still prefer Lukas Sotrmskull's Dragon builder though.

Before I let my thought get away from me, lets talk about my other alterhuman identities.

The other side of the spectrum, when you have a almost exact match in sources that are well known, you end up keep getting mistaken as it. My kardiatype looks very alike to Haku from Spirited Away. It gets frustrating when I bring up my kardiatype, and people immediately go "oh, Haku!" It's the same problem with people seeing my self protrait and call that a horse or a goat. Seriously, is like people don't recognize a basic dragon head shape if it isn't scaled and spiked. Horses are neat, goat is fine, and Haku is a very cool dragon. But my kardiatype was not Haku. I'd argue that he was just your generic Japanese storm dragon that may or may not be local deity. Wild thought huh. I like that I get to see glimpse of that dragon through Haku, but I would really rather not deal with yet another case of misidentification in the form of "close enough". My human english name got enough of that treatment.

Amongst my other draconic identities, I have a vague-flicker of Flammie from the mana series. The vaguetype feeling has components of paratype within, precisely due to myself being the sort of dragon I am. Belly plate aside, Flammie looks very close to me. And with my discovery of how suggestive my wing count may be (currently in shifts of at least 4), Flammie is definitely a big contender for media representation of myself.

When it comes to intensionally created identity, me and Akumu, my headmate/mirror self, collectively linked a vaguetype of Aurelion Sol. Now, Aurelion Sol has nothing alike to me, maybe the color is more align with Akumu's, but generally, the eastern noodle form is my least favorite to partake in. It feels like a responsibility, and things are just heavier in a way when I'm in that form. It doesn't have to make much sense. Perhaps I will delve into this one day. One can argue we formed the link due to our kardiatype. But really, it happened because that's the one dragon we were really drawn to (and attempted to main) while playing League, and well, there were two others who were shyvana and smolder respectively, and we wanted to complete the draconic of LoL set for shits and giggles. There not much need to find a representation, because we are the exact representation from the source. But wait, we identify with the concept stage where people dub "unbound form" of Sol. Whelp, guess we gotta look elsewhere again.

It feels like I'm trying to start a topic and well, rant on draconity got me all over the place.

Sometimes it really is a exercise in patience. The more unique you are, the harder it is to find representation. Wouldn't change myself for the world though, I love my uniqueness, and I appreciate how crazily varied dragons can be. Or any other sort of creatures or identities or experiences. Life is wonderful like that.

[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?

[the-shape-shifting-system]

Unhinged 30 Days of Otherkin Challenge

Day 4. If your kintype suddenly opened their eyes, what would they be looking at?

We've seen another user get confused at the question, and so are we. So you get two answers for the price of one! Yippee :3

Literal: the courtyard-ish front of our school, facing the road that leads to and from the gate. There are some trees lining it with the walkways.

~~~

Our kintype's ideal place: high in the sky among the clouds as the sun leaves place to the moon. Many dragons fly around us too, scales seeming to glow as the last rays of the sun are caught on them.

There it is for day 4. Hope you enjoyed that last bit, tried to do a bit of poetry.

[bardkin]

taking on @who-is-page's Folcintera Week Challenge! do note that entries most likely won't be daily, because i have Various Things wrong with me (such as Work and Chronic Sleepy) <3

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

I’m a fisher marten, human-gem-hybrid, coyote, animal familiar, artificial mobian hedgehog, and a demon-weapon. I’m also a Storyteller archetrope, though that doesn’t totally apply here (until it does, sometimes).

Generally speaking, I experience various shifts ��� most commonly in the form of phantom limbs / parts (ears, tail, fur, fangs, gem, etc), envision or "self-image" shifts (tho I hesitate to call them "shifts" since I don't usually internally "see" my human-body-self, when I think about my self-image anyway), and mental / instinctual shifts — and have sort-of-memories, as well as noemata. All of this is physiological & neurologically based (though, my Shadow fictotype was just kind of... dropped into my lap, uninvited, and I've simply been Shadow The Goddamn Hedgehog ever since), with a very "narrative" framework to a lot of it.

When it comes to my animality specifically, I experience it in possibly a very niche way. I do have very “usual” experiences of beastly shifts, instincts, etc, but I’m not just restricted to four legs. I’m kind of like those queer little animals in Beatrix Potter’s books, Little Bear, or RedWall — I’m a creature straight out of a beast fable. Kind of furry adjacent, but also Pretty Much A Furry in a very nonhuman way. It kind of melds into very human activities. Unnoticeable unless I become aware of it, because it’s become almost background-noise levels of normalized to me. I almost always have some phantom animal part, be it ears, a tail, quills, fangs, pawpads, claws. It's more noticeable to not have these shifts.

My animal familiar-ness is still something I have yet to delve deeper into, as this is a concept that requires connection to another; lending one’s self to help someone you’re bonded to. Admittedly, I haven’t had the chance to explore it yet, but I do know that it’s affected by all manner of its depiction and origins. Be that daemons from His Dark Materials, or palismen from the Owl House, each iteration of the “magical animal companion” feels like me. It also bleeds into dragon-rider bonds, and heavily affects how I experience that genre, or stories that have this as a trope or character. Rather than relating to the (usually always human/humanoid) rider, I find myself in the shoes (or, more aptly, the scales) of the ridden dragon.

Being Steven Universe is an experience I’m not sure I can articulate properly in a few sentences, other than... that is who I am. I am Steven in the most mundane, everyday ways possible. Being Steven is also the closest to being internally human that I'm ever going to get, and even that never feels like "human from this earth." I am Steven in the way I have endless optimism, in the way I always want to help and fix others’ problems (even if I can’t, and even if it’s detrimental to my own mental health), and in the way that I have Goddamn Mommy Issues. Again (which is only partially a joke). I may not be Steven-From-The-Show or Steven-From-The-Light-Games, but that's also me. Even some fanfiction iterations are me, which is something of an entirely separate essay in itself.

The demon-weapon thing is... well, saying it (simply) “feels good to identify as something that can turn into a weapon” seems... kind of surface level, but, it’s what I experience. There are days where it feels like I should be able to flex some unseen muscle, something under the surface, and have my arm become a blade, or to be able to morph completely into a scythe or sword. That I should be able to resonate my very soul with the one(s) closest to me, so that they could literally wield me as the weapon I was meant to be. It’s something I know will never be a reality, but that it should.

And... being Shadow the Hedgehog means experiencing a gut wrenchingly regretful nostalgia for a sister I never had & couldn’t save. It means having quill shifts out of nowhere, sometimes over top other phantom shifts, and having something to attribute my memory gaps to (even though I know they’re because of the auDHD, & not caused by this fictotype. Sometimes to get mentally well you have to be a little mentally unwell). It means embracing not knowing who I am, and forging ahead anyway.

[elliott-the-creature]

unhinged 30 days of otherkin challenge except I do it all in one day lol (link to questions here)

day one: (dog) probably something with lots of bugs and rich soil! dig dig dig!!

day two: (dragon) cold ocean for sure! even though I’m a sea/rain hybrid—which would make you think I’d like tropical oceans—cold oceans are the best! warm ones are cool too when you see all the fish

day three: (cat) wet cat food (probably chicken or some land meat flavour, fish is nasty), mouse meat, and blueberries!

day four: (alien) the endless storm and oceans of neptune. the wind would whip through my antennae, and rain would splatter my slick skin

day five: (dog) sticks are amazing! I love it when my family throws sticks in the lake for me to swim and catch!

day six: (deer) mmm, leaves are delicious! plus, they make for great cover, and they’re so beautiful too

day seven: (deer) well, as a caribou, some of my brethren migrate, but I’m perfectly cozy where I am now. I have no need to migrate; I have all the food and shelter I need

day eight: (owl) sleepy!! even when it’s nighttime, I get pretty sleepy. makes flying kinda hard lol

day nine: (dragon) waaaay bigger than a breadbox! I would probably crush a breadbox lol, human stuff is so tiny

day ten: (deer) long grasses and peaty soil, with the occasional bug skittering across the ground

day eleven: (alien) definitely my mandibles and antennae! it was so weird at first, because most of my kintypes are mammals or something similar to that, but this was completely different. I’m used to it now, and I love swiveling my antennae around

day twelve: (water) hmmm… I can’t really think of anything. maybe spotify, because there is a wide variety of music that reflects the constant flow of water, and how some of it is calming and slow, and other ones are hardcore and fast

day thirteen: (cat) mmm, pretty good. feeling kinda lazy today because of the weather, but still good overall. currently listening to music while doing this challenge, and my companion alley is snoozing beside me.

day fourteen: (water) I’d probably end up breaking it, y’know, since water and electronics don’t mix well. unfortunate, but that’s nature

day fifteen: (dog) I like having lots of soft things like plushies and warm blankets and plenty of pillows! when I’m regressed as a puppy, they make me feel so cozy and happy! i also like piling my blankets into something shaped somewhat like a dog bed and flopping on it

day sixteen: (deer) hmmm, that’s kinda tricky. yarn is alright, but it’s gotta be that kind that isn’t scratchy. fleece is good too, but I overheat too much, so it can be uncomfortable when I get too hot

day seventeen: (dog) no no, I’m a good dog! I only like biting my toys, I would never bite a human! at least, unless they deserved it…

day eighteen: (owl) chia seeds huh, I’ve never tried them. not too much of a seed owl myself, I much prefer meat, like a good mouse or bird!

day nineteen: (dragon) nah, I could never knit. too clumsy, and my big claws would probably keep snagging the yarn. too bad, knitted stuff is so pretty!

day twenty: (alien) it’s kinda slimey, but not something like a frog or eel. maybe like a shark, but when you rub it head to tail, not the other way. it’s kinda scaley too, but you can’t immediately tell that there are scales, because they’re so small.

day twenty-one: (water) glossy for sure! it makes anything look shiny and beautiful, just like the surface of the water

day twenty-two: (owl) my favourite kind of music is ones with a lot of different instruments. it’s so fun trying to pick out all the different sounds and identifying which ones are which. love songs with a good bass or echoey effect too

day twenty-three (my favourite number): (cat) my fur immediately bushes up, and my tail starts to lash in anticipation. you never know what it might be, so it’s better to be careful!

day twenty-four: (deer) my hearing, for sure. I can pick up the quietest sounds, and it lets me stay alert no matter where I am. sucks when I have to be in a noisy place though, ow…

day twenty-five: (dog) I’m sure I could last for quite a while! I got a good nose, so I could probably find food and water pretty fast (depending where I am), and I can always run if something scary finds me.

day twenty-six: (alien) something with a very appealing texture, like fresh peas or carrots. I would have a muted taste, but it wouldn’t be something super bland either.

day twenty-seven: (dragon) I would much rather be asleep than stay awake, but I might go for a night fly around the jungle.

day twenty-eight: (owl) uhh, fingers? I don’t got no fingers! just wings and talons, no need for fingers here! although it would be nice to have an opposable digit on my talons…

day twenty-nine: (dog) anything smells good! cooked meat smells good, veggies smell good, fruits smell good, everything! love candles too, they’re my favourite!!

day thirty: kinda! it made me reflect more on my kintypes, and it was fun writing these responses in my different kintypes. would definitely recommend doing this, and I’d for sure do something like this again :D

[thecovenofcrows]

notes challenge

25: we’ll write a new chapter of our fic as soon as we get home

75: we’ll move out the cedar chest from our room

150: we’ll post more

165: we’ll post about alterhumanity more

190: well post about plurality more.

235: we'll come out to our friends from our old school about our plurality (they already know abt the alterhumanity)

256: we use discord more

340: we’ll research more for Ves’s alter space

400: we'll find a new place for Ves's hoard.

495: we’ll work on the alter space

548: we'll read more physical books

670: we work on actually befriending other plurals

700: We'll work on our sleep schedule

730: We'll begin working out every day.

777: We'll make an intro post

808: We'll change the number on this post to ones that make sense.\

860: We'll sew something new! (well Ves and Nikki will)

900: I'll learn how to bake again! - Nikki

945: we'll clean up our room.

980: we'll each coin a gender!

1000: we'll each make a userbox!

1080: we'll each make userboxes for the genders.

1160: we'll rollerblade more.

1200: we'll ask for help when we don't understand something.

1350: we'll link our ao3 acc so y'all can read our fics.

1476: we'll try to make online friends who know we're plural.

1600: we'll try to make irl friends who know we're plural.

1700: Ves will tell our friends from our old school abt their delusions.

1780: We'll work on labeling our genders.

1920: We'll start a notebook-only story (written only on a ntbk)

2010: We'll research proper diet

2200: We'll try to start to eat icky-texture foods (for context that includes most things that’d be considered healthy)

2290: We'll try to do insys group therapy (idc what you say Nikki- just bc you were a child soldier at 17 doesn't make you not a child soldier, same for you Luka!)

2500: We'll make a list of the activities we want to do and make a schedule for them!

(No more than 10 notes per person, no you can't just letter off number in the comments/reblogs, you have to actually write smth)

---

Red Text = Notes reached, incomplete.

Green Text = Notes reached, complete.

Blue Text = notes not reached, complete due to stressful circumstance.

Purple Text = notes not reached, complete due to non-stressful circumstance.

[tcc-mojis]

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[the-harmonious-system]

30 Days of Daemonism - REVISED

1) Your daemon's name and meaning/origin?

2) Do you have more than one dae, and what do you think of having more than one?

3) Your daemon's favorite/personal/comfort form(s), and yours? Are they the same or not?

4) What is your symbolic/Pullman form? If you don't follow the TDF systems, make something like art, writing, or a moodboard instead!

5) What is your analytical form? If you don't follow the TDF systems, make something like art, writing, or a moodboard instead!

6) How does having a dae help you, and do you do anything beneficial for your dae?

7) What are your dae's favorite aesthetics, and how do they compare to yours?

8) What is your relationship with your dae? Do you get along, do you fight sometimes?

9) How often and how clearly do you project them onto the physical world around you?

10) What is your dae's voice like?

11) Describe your friends who are also daemians (a person who has a daemon)! Or, if you have none: what do you and your dae like to do together, and what do you both hate?

12) If you're alterhuman, how does being a daemian interact with your kintype identities? Or, if you're not alterhuman: do you see your dae in your dreams/nightmares?

13) Do you own any items that remind you of or directly represent your dae?

14) What is your best memory involving your dae?

15) Does anyone IRL know about your dae or daemonism? What do they think about it?

16) If you've read the HDM books, who's your favorite character and why? If you have not, do you ever plan on reading them, and if not then why?

17) Are your personal rules/headcanons for how daemons work different than canon HDM? If you haven't enough knowledge of HDM to know, then make art, writing, or a moodboard instead!

18) Would you live in a world where everyone's daemon was corporeal, including yours?

19) If you are religious or spiritual, does your dae come into that? Or, if you aren't: do you see your dae as essentially a more "solid" imaginary friend?

20) A question for your dae: what do you think of your other half?

21) How are you different from your dae in personality?

22) How long has your dae been in your life? For years, or less than that?

23) If you are plural, how does your dae interact with your headmates? Do you consider them another headmate or as a part of yourself, making one individual together? Or, if you aren't plural: has your dae ever disappeared from your mindspace for a long time, and if so, why? I know some daemians who've lost their dae for whatever reason and had to replace them with a new one.

24) Question for your dae: how do you interact with the world, with or without being actively projected by your other half?

25) How did you discover daemonism? The HDM books, the online communities, the Golden Compass film, or the BBC show?

26) An extension of the previous question: was it challenging to begin communicating with your dae, and is it easier now?

27) Are there any forms you and-or your dae absolutely loathe?

28) Does your dae(s) have a human or humanoid form? A form that's an extinct animal or mythical/fictional?

29) A question for your dae: what is your favorite place in the mindspace or the physical world?

30) Free day! Have fun, whatever you choose to do!

[mountain-lion-gremlin]

sometimes I feel like the old community that built up the alterhuman / nonhuman community has been forgotten.

Like everything has been so humanized, our identities are no longer deep because we don't teach the newer ones to try and understand it.

Sort of now feels like a game of "what feels like you the best?" And obviously, that isnt bad nor has it even been a problem. I've just been having this gut feeling that the whole community is becoming more and more human and forgetting what brought us here in the first place. Why we even feel these sorts of things. Like being a part of yourself is just a side blog, just something that is an add on and not something that is apart of you if that makes sense...

I feel lonely a lot, because I can rarely find anyone who connects with their nonhumanity as deeply as I do.

Rven though I'm currently not practicing being nonhuman and focusing on my shifts - no, not practicing, releasing. I haven't been releasing recently due to life and existing really lol. But either way, I just feel like this emptiness from being human is leaking very deeply into these places that once went to these places to hide from that.

Maybe others understand what im getting at and feel the same lol. I know others can't tell the difference, but I certainly can. And of course being human for some is an important part of their identity! I mean like I love being human - there's so many neat cool things and it's so great that I can even write this out so other creatures and decipher my thoughts and gain meaning out of them.

I just feel like the older, deeper, and more core primal part of the nonhuman community has been shunned and forgotten because of the bad reputation it has. And it's dying, and it's just mournful to see people wander onto these alterhuman places that don't connect with them, and talking about something that this other group completely understands, but has been completely lost and forgotten about.

Its scary to think that the p-shifting community is dying. But people don't want to believe in things that challenge the rational world now, and that's okay. Perhaps it needs to die. I'll always be a p-shifter through and through though. I'll always be a shapeshifter, even if nobody knows or understands what that is anymore.

Perhaps, a new community will grow over these old roots and find new meaning to shapeshifting. Perhaps our flawed ways will be seen and avoided. I want to see a community that isn't dying or dead because someone is a dictator with no actual experience in shapeshifting. I want to see a community where being a hybrid is okay, being unrealistic in your form is fine, that discovering werewolves and shapeshifting through a TV show doesn't make you a faker.

The p-shifting community is flawed. I do hope the old dumpsterfire dies. And I hope to god that we come out on the other side healthier and more alive then ever. I will say though, I have a feeling that no matter what happens the meaning of physically shifting will be lost no matter what we do. It's too taboo, too strange to most, and defies all logic in tiny human brains. That's okay though.

The practice has never been bad, but the people have been. I believe that p-shifting has never been bad (Of course if you apply it correctly. Anything done incorrectly can cause issues, including p-shifting) but the people who claim it, the people who attempt to dictate it, are. We don't need to destroy and harm and ban people because they aren't what you want, because they don't fit your standard of okay cuz there isn't any "science".

ill probably cover that anothertime, I'm incredibly passionate about the issues in the shapeshifting/ werewolf / p-shifter whatever you want to call it community.

But anyways, this is a tiny post about just expressing how I feel about this lack of depth that I feel about alterhumanity as a whole. I feel like they are moving in a direction that has lost the core meaning of being something other than human .

I will say though, it depends on how you view yourself and your relationship with your humanity. Perhaps all along there has been a large majority of people who sort of identify with being not human, but are mostly human. Perhaps the shapeshifter community is just an extreme version of this, that's why there's a lack of depth to it (personally to me)

regardless. Most likely no one will read this lolll

[that-dreaming-dragon]

Ruminating Alterhumanity

Sometimes I think about how life is pretty amazing by itself. All these lived experience, each person is their own universe within. Like Buddhism say, everyone has a Buddha inside. To me, that means endless possibility within ourselves. Maybe in a literal sense, a headspace. Or like a identity sense, whether it be species, gender, or some other sort of identity. Or maybe more symbolic and metaphorical, like a color, or maybe a believe, something intangible. Which is vague and a little abstract because isn't feelings and experience also sort of intangible?

Well, where was I going with this?

Alterhumanity, to me, is a experience. And yes, I'm totally referencing Garnet from Steven Universe.

Abstract and nebulous, yet at time so concrete and up front. Perhaps that is the nature of identities and everything else. Alterhumanity is what made up of a part of us, how we see the world, how we view our internal selves. It is something profound and sometimes a little silly.

Either way, before I completely lost track of my chaotic thoughts… I'm partaking in the Sol System's Alterhuman Writing Challenge. I will be uploading my stuff on tumblr @that-dreaming-dragon and my dreamwidth dreamdragon, the content will be my relationship with alterhumanity, either my own or in general. I will not be working off of a prompt and instead do it almost like a freewrite session. Although it will likely still jump around with my hectic schedule, naturally chaotic brain, and distraction every corner. I will be using the tags below so stay tuned!

[who-is-page]

The Sol System's Alterhuman Writing Challenge

In November 2021, we challenged ourselves to write an alterhuman-oriented piece every day until the end of November, ideally building up to 50,000 words written overall. We wanted to take this challenge up for several reasons—to help strengthen our writing habits, to set up routines during a time we normally struggle to do anything due to our seasonal depression, to finally learn to put our first drafts out there fearlessly instead of being ornery perfectionists, and to just generally get better at handling mixed reviews with our rejection sensitive dysphoria.

All in all, it was a huge success and a ton of fun-- we wrote about topics we might not have otherwise touched on, made a TTRPG, and just had a grand time overall with all the responses we got from the community. And because of that, we want to offer it to any of y'all folks who might be interested in tackling the challenge yourselves (even if it's a few days late, but who's counting?)

Here are the rules we bound ourselves by:

You must finish and publish at least one piece of writing a day, on your platform of choice—DreamWidth, Tumblr, Mastodon, PillowFort, DeviantArt, Twitter, Discord, Neocities, anywhere. It has to be publicly accessible and (if possible) tagged appropriately.

That piece of writing must either be about or in connection to alterhumanity (in general or your own), the alterhuman community, a community typically classified underneath the alterhuman umbrella, an experience related to or connected to alterhumanity, or otherwise be something inspired by alterhumanity/alterhumans/alterhuman experiences/etc. This category is meant to be as broad as possible, while still sticking to theme. Use prompts or go off the cuff, whichever works best.

Other than that, go nuts! Fiction, nonfiction, games, NSFW, do whatever you want. There is literally no limit on what type of thing you write, just that you write. You can also start a piece at any given time—for a couple of our pieces, we started them one day, after we’d already published something, and then finished them and posted them a day later. I also personally recommend dedicating one unique tag to it on your blog to help keep track, but it's your writing and your rules all the way down other than what I've listed out here.

And if you do decide to take up the challenge, consider tagging us in it! We'd love to see whatever you write!

[e1ectrostatic]

30 Day Fictionkind Challenge Day 22

Q: What's something about the fictionkind community that you appreciate?

A: There are a few things I appreciate, which I'll get into under the cut 🫶.

First, I love how everyone is unabashedly themselves. Whatever I see from the community, it's always genuine self expression. Such expression also takes many different forms, such as essays, art, ask games, and many others. It's nice to see how committed the community is to getting their thoughts out there, and just being themselves and discovering themselves. I also love how encouraged it is to start dialogue or share your experience.

This is something I really needed to see. For the longest time, I was embarrassed about this part of myself, and inclined to hide it. Before finding the community, I unfortunately bought into a lot of the jokes going around about fictionkin. Like, no, "Mid-2010s kinnie Tumblr" isn't some cursed bygone trend or era — we're still here, we've been here much longer than that, and the exaggerations and parodies of the community that you're parroting aren't helpful. Because of this, I worried it was juvenile to be fictionkind, and it was "cringy" of me to feel this way. I still often feel like this among non-kin, but I'm slowly internalizing that those who would view my identity disparagingly wouldn't be worth my time anyway. I'm happy to find good examples of self acceptance within this community — it really helps one feel less alone.

I enjoy how the community is largely very inclusive. Yes, there is unneeded toxicity, but I often see pushback against that, which is heartening. I hope we can continue to foster a welcoming and inclusive community. Maybe it helps that this is already a fringe experience that gets a lot of flak from outside the community. I find a lot of misunderstood and laughed-at communities tend to be more welcoming to those seen as "cringy" or "weird".

And piggybacking off of that, I'm happy to be in a community of "weirdos". Seeing so many non-standard ways to experience humanity as well as many different ways to be nonhuman has been inspiring and insightful. I've greatly enjoyed reading peoples experiences and seeing how they pick apart identity and the concept of humanity itself. Plus, I've felt very seen and understood during my time engaging with the community, like I don't have to suppress myself. It's good to be among people I can for the most part count on not to come at me and deny who I am. Communication just feels a lot easier, too.

I also really appreciate the community's commitment to safety on and offline. Every recent alterhuman con I've attended had at least one panel on safety within the community. I also see posts on the topic being circulated. Encouraging safety on and offline is essential in any community, but especially in the alterhuman community, I think. Speaking from experience as someone who's fictionkind, it's a common desire to meet source- or canonmates. This is something that can be easily taken advantage of by bad actors, so it's refreshing to see those within the alterhuman community encourage caution and give constructive advice on how to maximize safety when interacting with others.

Finally, I love the sheer diversity of the community. I see so many fictotypes, and so many different points on the scale between canon-accurate and canon-divergent. It's nice to take in the sheer scope of the fictionkind experience. To everyone dedicated to sharing their noemata, thank you. Your contributions are greatly appreciated. And to anyone who has yet to share but wants to, go for it whenever you're ready. It can be as complex or as simple as you like. There will always be those who want to hear or see :].

That's all I have to say for this prompt, I think. You know the drill — if I think of anything else, I'll write further about it. Take care!

[dinocanid]

30* Day Fictionkind Challenge (but in one post)

[Link to the original list]

All of the questions and answers will be below the cut since it'd be too long otherwise.

*Some days are skipped because either I haven't experienced it, I can't think of a relevant example, or I don't remember.

Day 1: What is your fictotype? Are you a specific character, a nonhuman species, or both? My fictotype is Beastpup, Pup for short, a monster wolf from UT (the game not, Utah lol).

Day 3: Who are you open about it with? I'm pretty open about it in online spaces, but not anywhere offline.

Day 4: Do you participate in the fandom of your source? How do you do so? I write fanfiction, but other than that no, aside from research purposes since I'm working on a fandom retrospective video. Day 5: Do you fictionflicker? Technically yes by definition, but I don't call it that. "Experience taking" maybe, but I'm not even 100% sure that's the right word.

Day 6: When did you realize you were fictionkin? How long have you been in the community? My fictotype didn't exist until around 2020, so about that long.

Day 11: Have you ever met other fictionkin? In real life or online? Online I've met plenty, but offline no.

Day 15: How do you deal with kin-for-fun? Individually I don't, since they usually don't listen/don't care and possibly throw around some ableist rhetoric for added flavor. I just try my best to inform in general that KFF and fictionkin are not the same.

Day 16: What are your thoughts on symbols, flags, etc.? Personally they feel overdone and I just sort of consider them spam. I've set up my filters to just block flags/symbols/coining posts or blogs entirely.

Day 17: Does fictionkinity connect to spirituality for you? It's heavily involved in my metaphysical experiences, and tangentially related to my rituals.

Day 20: How do you express your fictotype? Clothes, merch, cosplay, maybe even name? I have a Beastpup fursuit I made that I always wear to cons!

Day 21: What’s something about the fictionkind community that you wish was different? I wish it was more friendly towards fictionkin that aren't an existing/canon/AU character. Usually we get ignored in fictionkin spaces since people seem to only be interested in canon-relevant stuff and canonmates. I have lots to say about the world of my source, but not specific characters since I'm way older lol. In the time period I remember the most, a majority of the cast was either a baby or just not alive yet.

Day 23: How do you approach consuming your source? Analytically, obsessively, casually, reluctantly, etc… Analytically currently. See Day #4.

Day 27: What are some other characters/species that remind you of your fictotype? Beastpup's fur pattern is a black-phased wolf, just like my wolf kintype. I've also had a handful of people think I was a trico, but I don't see the resemblance tbh.

Day 28: Do you have a favorite piece of fanart? (Better to reblog for this day, do not repost someone’s art.) Not fanart technically, but I think my all-time fav is this shopkeeper edit I made a while ago:

Day 30: Talk about what it’s like to be your fictotype. I didn't want to leave out this one since it's question #30, but I'm not sure if I can describe it well. With my alterhumanity in general, I experience shifts in the sense that I more or less always feel like my kintypes (to the point where I don't use shifting terminology since it doesn't feel like it makes sense). Circling back around to Beastpup, that's the version of myself that my bodymap matches most often, it's what my brain defaults to when I'm not looking in a mirror. I also experience source homesickness sometimes.

[thecovenofcrows]

Intro

Hello! We're the Coven of Crows. We do not technically have any collective names however when referring to all of us you may use "The Coven", "The Flock", or "the Murder" when referring to us. We're a mixed origin system of 7! (Plus an often dormant/sleeping part, that does not classify itself as a system member.)

We may use emoticons to communicate if we can not properly articulate with words, a list of their loose meanings can be found can be found here.

We block freely. We might like you and still block you because something set us off. For instance we'll block any1 who insults a kin of a sysmate. This is not a joke, we take everyone's lives and memories seriously. If you insult a kin of one of us- even if it represents a different version of the character- we will usually block..

OUR AMAZING (And very possessive, but it's mutual dw) QPP is @turquitheslimeplush !

Our ao3 accounts are crow_soul_anarchist and the_covens_plural_works!

our Palestine donation ask blog is @the-coven-stands-with-palestine We will not answer any asks not given to here. This is not due to ill intent, we simply do not wish to clutter our posts with donation asks. All donation asks sent her will be deleted.

Our notes challenge post is here in case you want to give us some motivation! https://www.tumblr.com/thecovenofcrows/762193292707463168/notes-challenge

Our DNI and BYF!

We are bodily a minor, anything sexual/romantic (especially from adults) will receive a block and report.

More info on us below the cut!

Hi! My name is Vesper. I'm the host and core of the system. I will not be sharing my age, as it's the same as the bodies. I am taken by @wilbur-of-the-coven, I use they/neos (And may flux. from day to day as I'm genderfluid) and I'm an alterhuman. For more information on me personally please check my blog, @vesper-of-the-coven!

I may experience delusions and I will talk about them on both my separate account and here, though they are censored.

Hello, I'm Wilbur, I'm the system's ex-curacormate and currently I only use the role Emergency fronter, though I do front out of emergency situations. I'm 17 and use she/her. I'm also taken by @vesper-of-the-coven! I'm wolfkin and soot sprite kin. I am probably neurogenic.

I am not connected to W!lliam gold at all. My name is simply a coincidence.

Sup! I'm Rex- Tyrannosaurus Rex actually, but that's a mouthful. I use he/they and I'm trans masc. I'm the system's external protector and I'm 22. I consider myself highly punk and against the psychiatric system. Presigenic.

I'm also the system anger and anxiety holder, my blog is @rex-of-the-coven

Hi! Hi! Hello! I'm Mox! I'm... 4! I don't front often for my safety and I only have a secondary role (the others don't want to strain me too much and we give ourselves roles) which is a Dear/Charge. I can read but I can't really write... But my Sysmates will usually help me make posts! Quoigenic.

I use he/him and my blog is @mox-of-the-coven! (Any message/ask to this account will be deleted promptly for his safety. If you are friends with us then he may talk with you on discord. The only other form of interaction with him is normal notes. Please understand we are simply doing this so he will remail safe - Nikki)

Hello, I'm Nikki. I'm a fictive of C! Nikki from the DSMP. I act as the systems dipomat and diffuser. I remember I was in a relationship with Puffy back in my source and acted as the bench trio's older sister. I'm a willogenic alter!

I'm 19 and use she/they. My blog is @nikki-of-the-coven!

Hello... I'm Hollow Velvet (Also know as {eldritch}.)... I'm ageless and beyond most human understanding... I'm mute in real life and may not post much here. I do not have a role, but I do the systems homework. I am quoigenic, possibly stressgenic.

My pronouns are he/they/she, in order of frequency (Ex. use 'he' 3 times, use 'they' 2, and 'she' 1. By the order of frequency, think of it as a ratio.) My blog is @hollow-velvet-of-the-coven.

Hello, I'm Luka, I'm 17 and my blog is @luka-of-the-coven. I act as the current curacormate and I'm a traumagenic alter. My pronouns are they/them. I'm a fictive and remember being in a relationship with Adri(she/her) and Marinette(she/they) back in my source.

I like to use the tag 'actually traumagenic' to piss off anti-endos, lol.

___________ Honorable mention: Nobody is songitive/builder part. They prefer parts terminology and view themselves as an extension of our headspace. They do not consider themselves a system member and they are often dormant/sleeping.

USERBOXES:

[kinfeelings]

filling out Kyr's alterhuman ask game!

🌲 - are you a wild or domestic animal?

Both! Siberian tigers are wild, and eevee + the eeveelutions are most commonly found in human captivity.

🌺 - How did you find out you were alterhuman?

I learned about the concept first on Tumblr, and it resonated with me significantly, even though I was wary of all the mockery it received initially.

👑 - do you own any gear? If so, what is it?

Not yet, mainly because it's been challenging to find so far.

🌥️ - how long have you identified as alterhuman?

Since I was like 16 or so. I'm 26 now.

🍂 - what are some of your favorite alterhuman-related activities?

Swimming (both vaporeon and tigers are adept swimmers, the former more-so than the latter), and I really love watching content with either of my kintypes in 'em. Tiger documentaries, or anime footage about the eeveelutions...admittedly, I don't have many "kintype activities," which is regrettable.

💫 - do you experience species dysphoria?

A lot! I just don't talk about it very much...

🕊️ - does your kintype/theriotype go by a separate or different identity? (i.e. different name, age, gender, etc)

The tiger one is probably male? But the eeveelutions vary wildly.

🧸 - do you experience pet regression?

Nope!

🦋 - what are all your kintypes/theriotypes?

Siberian tiger and eevee + all its eeveelutions.

🍃 - do you shift?

Often, yeah.

👼 - Do you identify as/with other non-human creatures that aren't animals?

Do pokémon count as animals? IDK.

☄️ - other random therian/otherkin stuff!

I don't know what to say here, lol...maybe I should mention that I journal my alterhuman journey on the Nonhuman National Park forum or that I keep trying to write essays about my experiences and failing.