#ancestral nonhuman

[creatureheart]

hi! forgive me for bringing up an old post out of nowhere, moreso if youve already answered this question before (in which case feel free to just link your answer!) you made a really good post back in april explaining some alterhuman/nonhuman/etc labels and explaining some general facets of it like how it can develop involuntarily - in that post you say thar some people may experience being nonhuman physically or ancestrally and i was wondering what that means in this context? i hope this doesnt come across as rude or anything, im genuinely curious what this means and was hoping you could explain. thanks for taking the time to read either way. ❤️

Never feel bad for sending in questions. I’m always down to try my best at answering them when they’re sent in, but I cannot promise I know everything, and those that fall into these groups are welcome to chime in and correct me when needed!

To what you asked, in basic terms, it’s what it says on the tin. There are people who identify in a physical or ancestral way.

Some identify as their ‘types in all ways including physical. This may be due to the simple mindset of “this is my body, I am this thing, therefore this body is this thing’s body,” all the way to those who experience delusions that cause them to see themselves as physically their ‘type. It very much depends on the person and how they experience their nonhumaness. Some terms that refer to things like this are Holothere and Endel, but there are others!

Ancestral nonhumans are those who believe their nonhuman identity has been passed down through familial lineage. An example being some of the founders of the online Otherkin community who believed they were descended from Elves. I can’t say I know too much about this, but it again depends entirely on the individual as to how their family came to pass this down to their descendants — whether something like a curse, to it having always been that way.

While not the most informative, I hope this is a good start at finding information on these things, and I welcome anyone that falls into these groups to reblog and talk about their experiences.

[kyntypes]

Even as a canid, I am picky with my meat. I'm having a sandwich from a deli today that is divine. It doesn't taste off, the texture is mostly consistent, and the veggies with it are great. I had to post about it because it was so good. LMAOOOOO

[that-dreaming-dragon]

In Dealing with Exomemories, Especially Exotrauma

Cross-posted from my dreamwidth entry. Link directly in the title.

In the time spent in the alterhuman community, in particular to the therian/kin that dealt with exomemories from other lives, I've come to observe something critical--many carried various exotrauma.

My belief is that a part of the reason reincarnation happens is to provide us a chance to seek closure in our other lives or heal the wounds we carry. Perhaps we are tied to this cycle due to unfinished business, whether positive or negative.

I don’t identify as the eastern ocean dragon of my past; thus, it is my kardiatype. However, I have memories, instincts, likes, and dislikes based on that dragon. There are pains I've felt that I'm still trying to determine if they might be connected to that dragon's own loss, but they don’t hurt me as much, as I am able to observe from a distance. However, this comes down to the identification and separation of the part of the self. From the beginning of my realization of being nonhuman, I already identified as who I am: the dream dragon.

Perhaps this can help others as well, in finding that separation and distance. This is also considering that we have people within the community who can interact with their other lives as separate beings. This couples with the Chinese belief in spirits and souls (hun and po)[1] and how transmigration works with each incarnation: you only move on with a part of it, leaving the rest behind. Essentially, one is different from their past or other selves (as time can be seen as non-linear to some).

Another key thing is finding closure. Perhaps the various memories are vying for attention because of unresolved loose ends.

Writing down stories, or making any sort of creation work for each and every one of those lives might help. I believe there is truth and fact in fiction. Many alterhuman that I've observed use writing as a form of interaction with their selves. I do it too, finding temporary joy in worlds where I can be myself, and it serves as an outlet to work through some inner conflicts or other dissent. Memories become somewhat easier to handle once I put them down as something concrete that I can work with. If emotions are causing suffering, mindfulness is a good practice to counter that—acknowledge and accept the emotions, and then learn to lessen their impact on one's being. This deals with more psychological territory, but the same techniques and methods are not restricted to a single subject area. There are numerous resources available, but here's a small excerpt:

Ride out Waves of Emotions--Be Mindful Normalize Emotions Observe Anticipate Emotions will get bigger/intensify Visualize Ride/surf the emotion wave/tide. Ride it out instead of blocking it. Let it flow. Gently let go; it's okay to release the grasp. Shift focus; practice mindfulness; notice the physical surroundings. Be attentive and curious. Be Nonjudgemental Acceptance

Additionally, having something grounding or anchoring is good. Anything, even a stuffed toy, a pet, a place, another sapient being, or even things beyond—that's a bit like speaking of faith, ironic considering I'm discussing grounding in the unseen and forces beyond.

All of these can to be utilized together. Comfort allows room to break down, grounding offers a point to return to should the mind becomes lost in the memories and emotions. While all the other exercises allow confronting the memories, they help in working through emotions by offering a new perspective.

There is also something many East Asians do—they pay homage to their ancestor, a common practice is setting up ancestral tablets or spirit tablets. Offerings and prayers are made to these tablets as a way to connect with and show respect to one's ancestors. For me personally, I have seen this practice extend to one's own other lives.

In the end, the mind is what matter. Manifestation--your will to see your other lives' chapters be closed. I wish everyone all the best in finding that inner peace.

[1]Reninger, Elizabeth. "Hun & Po Ethereal & Corporeal Soul In Taoism." Learn Religions, Feb. 8, 2021, learnreligions.com/hun-and-po-in-taoism-and-chinese-medicine-3182553.

[diviningiynx]

Know Thyselves (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from my previous post, this is a list of parts of self and spirit relations that a person may need to discern while sorting through the different types of voices and interactions one can experience.

Other external sources that can be internalized

Introjects - External people or ways of thinking that have been internalized, often in a personified form. Can be someone the person knows (e.g., parent, abuser) or someone the person knows of (e.g., famous figure). Can be internalized as an alter's personality in some cases (e.g., persecutor alter that has traits of an abuser).

Fictives - Introjects based on fictional sources, such as a character from a movie or book. Can be internalized as an alter's personality in some cases.

Programming - Executable steps, behaviors, thoughts, or actions that are intentionally placed as a program in a person to control them and that can be triggered to run. May be formed in a sequence, or layered with other programs. Can be triggered by certain conditions or actions, by an alter if particular criteria are met, or external stimuli like auditory tones, code words/phrases, or particular types of touch. Often placed by abusers whether as part of an organized cult or not. May be placed by baneful magick to run as part of a hex, or can be programmed by nonhuman beings or spirits. Can take visual or other energetic forms, such as a mass, entity, or implant.

Conditioning - Similar to programming, but introduced through repeated behavior or exposure to form neural pathways and reactions. Can create acceptance, tolerance, and even desire for a state of emotion/being or way of thinking. Can work in complementary ways with programming. Not always done in as intentional and specific a manner as implanted programming. For example, may involve being conditioned to seek out and tolerate abusive behaviors or relationships due to the environment in which a person grew up, but without abusers specifically and intentionally programming the person to do that. On the other hand, can be done with a degree of intention as part of an array of abuse methods, such as lovebombing, gaslighting, or grooming.

External spirit relations

Ancestral spirits - Ancestors can come from this or past lifetimes. Blood or spiritual connections facilitate greater access to communicate and interact with a person. May have useful information or aid with magickal or energetic workings. Depending on the spirit's perspectives and spiritual development, may or may not align with a person's current best interests.

Tulpas - Existing spirits or manifested forms that have been invited to be in some sort of relationship to the person (e.g., friend, romantic partner). May take on or match characteristics projected by the person as desired. May or may not be beneficial.

Intrusive thoughts/voices - Uninvited and often unwelcome thoughts or voices. Distinct from internalized ways of thinking or personal thoughts. May mask as a person's inner thoughts, pose as another known and trusted spirit, seem to come from an external object like a mirror, or be obviously foreign. Can include insults, threats, encouraging self-harm or violence, uncharacteristic racist or sexist thoughts. Can include dictating instructions or overwhelming influence to behave in certain manners (e.g., impulsive sexual acts). May come from harassing or malevolent spirits, or from beings that manipulate the simulated world and have greater access to intrude on people's thoughts. Caution may be required to distinguish these from auditory hallucinations or mental health conditions.

Guiding or channeled thoughts/voices - Communications that may or may not be intentionally channeled from guides or that may take place with other spirits with whom a person intentionally undertakes to communicate. Can take various forms—more formal or casual, depending on a spirit's and the person's preferences and relationship. May take place with spirit guides before or after an overt invitation to work together. Connection can be deepened and strengthened through initiatory work. Often recommended to be done with protection and boundaries in place to ensure the interchange is in line with a person's highest will and good.

Other spirit communications - Communications that may be overheard or be more incidental in nature, such as encounters with ghosts or spirits passing through.

Spirit connections - Connections from current or past lifetimes with spirits that can facilitate access to and influence over a person. May result in the spirit being able to easier locate a person, connect with them in the current lifetime, take from or exchange energy with the person, or have synchronistic interactions with them (e.g., be someone in the person's life if incarnated). May or may not be beneficial. Includes spirit guides, ancestral spirits, others with whom a person has had working or other relationships. Can also include bound spirits that have not been internalized, spirits with whom a person has made deals, spirits that believe the person owes them a debt, spirits who want to use the person for a particular purpose, or spirits with whom there was a strong emotional or sexual connection. If the spirit has harassed the person in the past, may include nonconsensual magick or entry points used to influence and access the person.

Summoned spirits - Spirits whose presence has been called through summoning techniques to exert control over the spirit, sometimes in a slave/master relationship. Often done to invoke a spirit to empower a ritual without freely consensual collaboration. May involve making a deal or committing to some payment with the spirit. Caution or avoidance is recommended, especially with spirits that use this type of interaction to form connections that may be manipulated or to exploit loopholes in the agreement/exchange.

Dream or spirit sex - Direct sexual interactions with spirits in dream states or waking life. May be used to facilitate a boundaried, mutually consensual energy exchange with a trusted spirit or energy (e.g., the Source) for some purpose that is in the person's best interest—and only if the spirit consents to operate in that way and can do so in a balanced manner. Often can be used by individual spirits for energy feeding, forming unhealthy connections, or implanting programming. In waking life, can be experienced through unseen stimuli or take place via masturbation or a sexual encounter with another person. Sometimes these interactions can feel violating if they are not in a person's best interests. However, in either dream or waking states, malevolent spirits often pose as benevolent or ambiguous figures to take advantage of this type of interaction. Sexual practices can be energetically potent, which means a spirit intending harm can draw a lot of energy this way and have larger effects on a person. Caution is advised.

Energetic downloads - Packets of information that may be transferred to a person by spirit guides or other helping spirits without direct communication. May cause the recipient to feel sleepy, enter trance, or need to meditate to better receive the transmission. Often requires some work afterwards to process and integrate the information, such as creating a painting or a piece of writing that seems to flow from this new information source.

Other external relations

Energy exchange and/or feeding - Can happen with humans, other living beings, or spirits, consensually or not. Can take the form of different types of energy. Often consensually done for magick rituals to empower the carrying out of the desired result. May be done in boundaried manners with trusted spirits or energies for revitalization or mutual empowerment. Can happen nonconsensually in "vampiric" or intrusive interactions with humans or nonhuman beings. Can also happen through giving away one's energy without replenishing or holding boundaries. May occur—intentionally or not—in low levels through giving energy or attention to something like a piece of art, daydreaming about a celebrity, or liking a social media post. If done in a way that is not balanced, can result in symptoms of low energy, feeling drained, or energy sickness.

Remote viewing - Can be used by humans to mentally surveil a person and retrieve information about them and what they are doing. Depending on the practitioner, person's protections, and other conditions, may vary in clarity and intensity. May cause the person being viewed to sense or see the remote viewer and their intrusion, especially if the person is sensitive and it was not consented to.

Astral projection, dream walking - Can be used by humans to project a part of their spirit into other spaces, including into a person's vicinity or space. Can include intruding into a person's dream space, especially if the person if not using protection, invites them in intentionally or inadvertently, has an existing connection with the projector, or exits their own dream space and meets outside of it. May happen with or without consent. May be used to gather information, affect a person's surroundings, or have interactions with the person. When this involves energy exchange/feeding or sexual relations, astral presence will make the connection stronger than it otherwise might be. Hexes, evil eye, love spells, psychic attack - Done intentionally or unintentionally with harmful or controlling effects to a person by another human or spirit. In some cases, such as hexes, may involve ritual workings. Others, such as evil eye or psychic attack, may involve sending strong emotions/intentions and energy. These can result in using/creating connections, hearing or seeing the attacker when they send the intention, or similar experiences.

Distance healing/energy work - Best done with consent or structured in a way that is not intrusive. May involve receiving energy for healing or other purposes from an energy healer and forming a (usually temporary) connection. For example, when the energy is being sent, a person may think of the healer, if they are familiar with each other, or something related to the healer.

(Part 2 of 2)

See my previous post for the rest of the list, or you can reference the full list in the Resources section of the VSSL website:

Parts of Self and Spirit Relations A guide to parts of the self and spirit relations that one may need to discern in coming to "know thyself."

[aestherians]

It's a common belief where t I live, that some people/families have fae/fey blood, and I've been told by multiple people that me/my family does, that a lot of times I forget I'm fae-kin technically lol (Important disclaimer of I'm not saying I p-shift, or support p-shift claims) but it's funny in an interesting way, having old ladies who never used the internet or heard of otherkin nod and say you're one of the fair folk

I love that! Genetic/ancestral nonhumanity is such a cool phenomenon :)

[icaruskeyartist]

waking up and trying to combat my daily executive dysfunction to not leave bed before 8 AM for class be like

scrolling through tumblr and email and seeing ex-Christians being absolutely rancid about religion to Jewish friends.

Like, I get it. I hate god(s) and I have an especial bone to pick with the "Abrahamic" god in particular. But you can't just walk up to someone whose ancestral history is basically a speedrun of "oh you believe x? Die then, you nonhuman scum" and tell them they're less than because.... they believe in x.

Believe it or not, the vast majority of religious people are, in fact, not assholes, no matter what they believe. There are even kind, caring, loving fundamentalist Christians who don't recognize the absolute doublethink they're pulling to exist like they do. Religion is a tool like anything else. Bad metaphor, but I'd say it's like a knife. Not good to point at people or to use to hurt yourself, but incredibly useful and versatile and you can make some delicious fucking food.

Anyway, if god isn't real, who am I going to fight when I'm dead and tap into my Southern white woman roots to speak to the manager?

[myriadeyed]

Week 1 (October 22nd)

Perception: Hindsight

I have been through many, many "iterations" with my alterhuman identity. Specifically my nonhuman identities. My heartedtypes have remained constant. And on the other hand, I have been through 26 wrong kintypes since my awakening in 2016. I started by questioning cat, dragon, alien animal, and red fox before introducing myself to the community as a swift fox. I have "been" a red-tailed hawk, a binturong, a shark, an ancestral whale, a beetle, and a vulture, to name a few.

In hindsight, all of the things I have wrongly confirmed have been pointing toward the right equation for a long time.

For a while during my first year in the community, I was a swift fox, a red-tailed hawk, and a binturong. The red-tailed hawk, obviously, was me finding an easier, more recognizable answer for osprey shifts. Foxes remind me so strongly of musteloids that in fact they remain a paratype of mine; raccoon, red panda, ringtail, American badger, pine marten, all could be easily mixed up with a desert fox. And binturongs: basically a feliforme red panda.

When I returned to the community in 2019, I went through a heavy questioning phase and confirmed-deconfirmed in quick succession Yaguarasaurus columbianus, Kutchicetus minimus, and bluntnose sixgill shark. I questioned Komodo dragon and leopard seal. A little later (2022), I had to introspect deeply on whether I was a mosasaur after watching Prehistoric Planet. I now recognize that while it is not a theriotype, Mosasaurus lemonnieri is a part of my experiences, from shifts to behaviors, urges and instincts to self-image. I somehow still experience "being" a mosasaur without being one. My past confirmations make sense in that light.

[ashleysingermfablog]

Wk 8, March 29th, 2024 Research

Thoughts and writings by María Iñigo Clavo

Tz’utujil artist Antonio Pichilla’s 2007 sculpture Envoltorio (Wrapper) is an unknown object wrapped in red fabric.

From the text: Mysticism as Traces, Signs, and Symptoms of the Untranslatable... Thoughts and writings by María Iñigo Clavo, 2020…

In the 2000s, concepts such as Bonaventura de Sousa Santos’s “ecologies of knowledges” began to signal a shift in approach to artefacts and their spirituality noting that each epistemology had its own wisdom to share, making evident the weaknesses of translation that uses just one specific epistemological frame. Clavo unpacks how today (2020), a new generation of thinkers are taking up the question of translation as a reliable space of negotiation in a framework of spiritual artefacts. Scholars such as Métis Zoe Todd and Anishinaabe Vanessa Watts have written on how non-Western epistemologies have been misappropriated or abstracted in historical and some contemporary and still prominent museum spaces, galleries and by collectors of these artefacts.For example, Watts takes up Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory—which popularized the notion of the interconnection between humans and nonhumans—to argue that Latour nonetheless maintains a hierarchy of beings with humans at the top. According to Watts, this misunderstands the Amerindian sense of nonhierarchical confluence between humans and the “natural”/nonhuman world.

Robin Wall Kimmerer in her Braiding Sweetgrass text, unpacks life as in alignment with the 'Web of Life' (Native American philosophy). She aligns with the text above by also interacting that no human stands at the top or centre of the life web. The life web acts as a way of seeing that all animals, plants, micro-organisms and even soil sub-straits are dependant on one another.

José Carvalho calls this attempt to adopt or assimilate non-western cosmologies in an hegemonic frame the creation of an “epistemological counterpoint,” in which new concepts are only allowed to be part of the “score” as long as they follow a principal (Western) melody, a melody that disregards life as web but prevails with humans or 'man' has having dominion. 

This critique of textual and conceptual translation is equally applicable when it comes to the visual arts and their modes of display:

In Mayan cultures, there is a tradition of wrapping things for various purposes. Food, personal belongings, and objects with special spiritual energy such as bones, the objects of ancestors, or stones, might be wrapped in textiles that serve as protectors of the object’s magical energy. Each community has its own traditional textiles of different colors, and knowledge about them is ancestrally passed through generations. The textiles operate as the connectors between two worlds: the magic/spiritual/unknown and the material human realms. Wrapping is an act of secrecy, and this privacy and opacity carries a sacred sense.

In this decolonical text, the footers as written by art writer María Iñigo Clavo provide a wealth of information not only the article on spiritualism, decolonisation and being the other, or otherness. This is my favourite footnote and I would like to add it here...

On an author that has studied decolonial thought... "I am not an anthropologist and am not attempting to write as an expert on indigenous cultures or cosmologies. I would like to state that I do not believe that non-indigenous people cannot address indigenous spirituality, or research or make art about it. Rather, I think that an utterance from any place can contribute to the processes of collective healing and learning from each other, and thus, I assume that the place from which my utterance (as any place) comes involves its own blind spots."

[queenboudicaa]

Biologists do not know at what point in our evolution Gyna sapiens evolved the unique feature of menstrual harmony.

As with any major novel adaptation, there would most likely have been multiple reasons why Gyna sapiens synchronized menses, but one subtle effect was to accelerate her liberation from the grip of male tyranny.

The majority of species manifest a disparity between the size of the male and the female. Biologists call this trait "sexual dimorphism."

Among invertebrates (insects, worms, etc.), females tend to be larger than males; among vertebrates, especially birds and mammals, males tend to be bigger.

Ethologists use a species' dimorphic ratio to predict its mating pattern. Whenever the male is disproportionately larger than the female, he uses his superior strength to fight other males for possession of the females, whom he overbearingly protects but keeps in sexual thrall. When males are nearly equal in size and weight to females, then cooperation and monogamy tend to be the norm.

Silverback gorillas and hamadryas baboons are two extreme examples of primate sexual dimorphism. The alpha males are more than twice as large as the females, and they thoroughly dominate the members of their respective troops and herds.

The alpha male, along with his close allies, brusquely fends off lower-ranking males who attempt to mate with "his" females. In some species of monkeys, powerless males never gain the opportunity to have sex at all. and the despotic alpha male's hard-won monopoly deprives females of choice.

Females of sexually dimorphic primate societies do not synchronize their estrus or menses but, rather, phase in and out of sexual receptivity in a random fashion, a perk not lost on the alpha male, who jumps on every chance to mount one estral female after another.

A group of females cycling in unison, however, dramatically alters the equation. Menstruating in synchrony means that all the females also coordinate their estrus and ovulate nearly simultaneously.

Imagine an alpha gorilla's or an alpha baboon's astonished confusion if all the females in his group simultaneously approached him. each presenting her hind, demanding relief. His initial delight over this novel situation would soon turn to consternation.

A solitary male, despite his well-advertised sexual prowess, would discover that it was exceedingly problematic to satiate insatiable females if they all demanded sex from him at the same time. Should he try he would most likely find himself exhausted and depleted, lying flat on his back, nursing a sore penis.

In these circumstances, he would presumably welcome the assistance of lower-ranking males.

Through a clever adaptation, females would now have a much greater selection of males, other males would finally get a chance to discover what all the hoopla was about, and. in general, the entire troop would be happier and more content.

By menstruating in sororal harmony ancestral Gyna sapiens broke the back of the system that rewarded the strongest, fiercest, males with a sexual monopoly In short, synchronized menses enhances female equality.

Underscoring this last statement: Female ring-tailed lemurs, one of the few nonhuman primates to habitually synchronize their menses, belong to the only primate species, other than humans, in which a female can completely dominate a male.

Allison Jolly observed on many occasions that a diminutive female approached a large male busily eating, snatched the food away from him. cuffed him on the ear for good measure, and then sauntered off to enjoy her ill-gotten gain in privacy.

No other female of any other primate species (except Gyna sapiens) would routinely dare so brazen an act.

Anthropologist Chris Knight has proposed that women synchronized their menses in order to organize a sex strike and force men to go hunting to bring them meat. He wrote in his comprehensive 1991 book, Blood Relations:

"For babies to be conceived, the sexes had to come together. For efficient hunting to take place, they had to separate. If both hunting and conception were to occur, the sexes had to alternate between conjunction and disjunction. Periods of sex strike and marital togetherness had to alternate. I assumed that this alternation must have been socially synchronized, rather than a matter for individuals to decide autonomously within couples. "

[coolmika745]

A Heian Villainess Survives as the Disciple of Onmyoji Abe no Seimei Chapter 1 & 2 Review

So I found myself reading another manga about Taira no Masakado, but since I do not live in Japan, I cannot download the app to finish reading it.🙁 I put the app on my wishlist so that it and this story could be released in my country although I may have to send an email about it too.

It is a good thing that Seimei has supernatural powers to see through conspiracies and disprove of false accusations so I will not have to witness another cliche palace drama where the evil court lady frames the court lady she despises who happens to be the female protagonist.

The first part of the chapter 2 could be foreshadowing that Taira no Masakado was one of Satsuki's ancestor as Satsuki said something about her father mentioning their ancestors, but she was not paying attention to him. Also, this just could a coincidence, but Satsuki surname is 'Soma (相馬)' meaning that she could be a descendent of the Soma Clan (相馬氏) who were descendents of Masakado's daughter, Haruhime; not Takiyashahime, but her sister.

Seimei asked a good question about Satsuki being a nonhuman. It is possible that she could be a half yokai like himself as I don't really know if she is fully human at this point in the story. I wonder if that picture they showed in one of the panals was Seimei's fox form 🦊 and Satsuki's rabbit form 🐰 or just a random scene the manga artist drew? It also seems to be an analogy of the 'Fox and the Rabbit' in which Seimei is the fox predator while Satsuki is the rabbit prey and at the end of the story the fox and the rabbit became friends.

From this chapter, I can see that the court lady who tried to frame Aki isn't an ordinary woman, which means that no normal humans could have dealt with her without Seimei being there. The imperial family isn't really ordinary because they are descendents of the sun goddess Amaterasu, but many of them did not inherit supernatural powers from her or their other ancestral gods.

Seimei seems to have met the Tengu before, but under what circumstances. I want to finish reading the next chapter before I post my thoughts on this.

[creatureheart]

Made an updated version of this with a bit more info on things and a few tweaks, so go check out that version here!

I've made a few posts talking about things in the nonhuman and alterhuman communities recently, mostly just brief looks into them, so I thought I would share this one.

The info may not be all that much, and could easily be expanded upon, but I did my best for a simple bit of info for certain things.

All pictures have ALT text included, but I shall post the text also here, under a cut, cause it's a bit long, lol

Nonhuman as an identity: To identify as not human either fully or partially. (hate/trolls will be reported and deleted)

Reminder: These are all personal identities and why someone identifies as nonhuman and what term someone decides to use for themself is exclusively their business. In the end it is what makes the most sense to the individual and not up to others. Now, onto some of the communities that are included under the nonhuman identity:

Otherkin: from the term "otherkind" - an identity which typically encompasses being wholly or partially a nonhuman entity. Usually understood to cover those who identify as mythical creatures and other fantastical things. Also covers those that fall outside of beings and creatures.

Examples of non-being or creature based identities: Conceptkin: an identity where one identifies as a concept such as the concept of night or fire. Objectkin: and identity where one identifies as an object. Songkin: an identity where one identifies as a song.

Examples of being and creature based identities: Therianthropy: usually shortened to therian - where one identifies AS a nonhuman animal. Some will say that this term refers to only earthen animals, living or extinct, but it has never only encompassed earthly animals. The community's language came from those who identify as werecreatures. Theriomythic: an alternate identity term for one who identifies in some intrinsic was as a mythical creature. Paleotherian: an identity term for one who identifies as a now extinct earthly animal, like a dinosaur or mammoth.

Cladotherian or Cladokin: an identity term for one who does not identify as a distinct species, but a broader identity encompassing an entire genus or larger grouping. Cladomythic: an identity term for one who identifies as a group (clade) of animalistic mythical creatures.

Fictionkin: an identity term that covers all things fictional. For those who identify as something fictional like characters, animals, species, objects, etc. These can be from books, shows, video games, etc, but not always! Original fictional characters and such are also possible.

There are many other identities that fall under the nonhuman umbrella which is why it's important to do your own research to figure out if a certain term works for you. All these identities share the trait of being involuntary. You cannot choose to be therian, otherkin, or the other mentioned identities.

While the already mentioned identities are involuntary, there are some identities that fall under being voluntary. Otherlink: an identity where one voluntarily identifies as nonhuman. Copinglink: an identity where one voluntarily identifies as nonhuman to copes with things such as trauma, stress, etc.

A lot of people may also say that it is impossible to become a therian, otherkin, etc. While the identity is involuntary, things like trauma and neurodivergence can cause an individual to take on a nonhuman identity when they had not had one previously.

Most will usually see people explain that these identities are spiritual or psychological, but these are only some of the ways that individuals may experience them. Some other experiences of nonhumanity: Symbolic Metaphorical Ancestral Physical (Yes this is an actual reason for some and they are just as much a part of the community as anyone else. Physical and Ancestral nonhumans are part of the community's history and some of its founders.)

For those looking for more information, and community places, here are some places to check out! Werelist Nonhuman National Park Alterhuman Archive The Chimera's Library. The above are forums and archives of information on the community. Most archived information is thanks to who-is-page, liongoatsnake and frameacloud on tumblr.

While this is a brief look into the nonhuman identity that I could share, I do hope it has been helpful in some way. Remember to be true to yourself, and don't let anyone tell you how to feel. Ignore, report, delete and block the haters!

Yeen out~

[anthropos-misanthropos]

So far my discussion of the Tlingit view of the person has been focused on those attributes and characteristics that distinguished a human being from a nonhuman one, a Tlingit from a non-Tlingit, a free person from a slave. However, without the immortal ancestral heritage passed down primarily, though not exclusively, through the maternal line, the Tlingit individual lacked the most important dimension of his or her social identity.

- S. Kan,  Symbolic immortality : the Tlingit potlatch of the nineteenth century

[izzywhisker]

Synopsis of Gravity because I can't wait many weeks for the story to crawl out

Tovard makes a blog about travelling to other dimensions ("shifting"). No one sees it but Ella. She starts trying it. She meets Ghoul who is also a shifter. The three of them meet in the same place. There's a blob that was following Ghoul around for his whole life. Blob gets energy from all three of them together and forms into Toliki. Toliki doesn't feel great in our world so drags the three to another dimension.

Friends and family of our heroes panic and wonder where they've gone. They gather forces/people to travel to the dimension to bring them back. This pisses off Toliki, who starts attacking the intruders. In defense, more Arfri are summoned to manage the situation. Everything gets chaotic as the humans come face to face with nonhumans in a freaking other dimension. When a human is injured, Ghoul has had enough and, having realised his spiritual and ancestral link to this dimension, uses magic to kick everyone out.

It doesn't end there, but it's the end of part 1.

[slimgreys]

Chimpanzee

Fossils at 20 million years ago include fragments attributed to Victoriapithecus, the earliest Old World monkey. In the early Miocene, about 22 million years ago, there were many species of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa the variety suggests a long history of prior diversification. Twenty-nine countries have instituted research bans to protect great apes from any kind of scientific testing. ĭue to the close genetic relationship between humans and the other great apes, certain animal rights organizations, such as the Great Ape Project, argue that nonhuman great apes are persons and should be given basic human rights. Those ancestors of the family Hominidae had already speciated from the family Hylobatidae (the gibbons), perhaps 15 to 20 million years ago. The most recent common ancestor of all Hominidae lived roughly 14 million years ago, when the ancestors of the orangutans speciated from the ancestral line of the other three genera. Within the taxon Hominidae, a number of extant and known extinct, that is, fossil, genera are grouped with the humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas in the subfamily Homininae others with orangutans in the subfamily Ponginae (see classification graphic below). Usage still varies, however, and some scientists and laypersons still use "hominid" in the original restrictive sense the scholarly literature generally shows the traditional usage until the turn of the 21st century. The current meaning of "hominid" includes all the great apes including humans. The earlier restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term " hominin", which comprises all members of the human clade after the split from the chimpanzees ( Pan). However, by the 1990s humans, apes, and their ancestors were considered to be "hominids". The original meaning of "hominid" referred only to humans ( Homo) and their closest extinct relatives. Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term "hominid" to vary over time. The Hominidae ( / h ɒ ˈ m ɪ n ɪ d iː/), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids ( / ˈ h ɒ m ɪ n ɪ d z/), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan) Gorilla (the eastern and western gorilla) Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo) and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.

[a-dragons-journal]

I’m betting most of us haven’t read it, because my mom is the only person I know who’s read it, but I’m in the middle of Clan of the Cave Bear and y’know, Ayla is actually a really interesting study of what basically being nonbinary but by a standard that’s wildly different from our society’s looks like - in a very literal way, she’s basically xenononbinary; she’s functionally nonbinary to the Neanderthals she’s living with by dint of not being a Neanderthal and thus not fitting their biological and sociological structures of womanhood.

For those who aren’t familiar: Ayla is the protagonist of the Earth’s Children series by Jean M. Auel. She’s a modern human, Homo sapiens, who lost her family in an earthquake when she was six years old and was subsequently taken in by a clan of Neanderthals. The series’ understanding of the differences between Sapiens and Neanderthals are somewhat outdated (although they were painstakingly accurate to the knowledge we had when they were written and this is in no way a slight against Auel), but they are very interesting. Among other things, the series puts forward the (entirely speculative and somewhat fantastical) idea that Neanderthals have a thing called Memories, where they can essentially retrieve memories from their entire ancestral line - at the cost of struggling to learn any new skills, and of skills having become hard-divided between men and women so that men essentially can’t learn women’s skills and vice versa. That results in a lot of things being part of a very strict gender binary, which no one even thinks to question (full disclosure that I don’t love that last bit because it feels like the author felt she had to justify having a patriarchal society with biological essentialism, buuuuuuuuut that’s another story).

Enter Ayla - a Sapiens child who doesn’t have Memories, doesn’t have the biological imprint of what “should” be the Dos and Don’ts for women, and has a lot more curiosity than Neanderthal women do about the things they’re not supposed to know. Not only that, but she has a male totem, one of the strongest totems in existence, the cave lion, when women are supposed to have weaker totems (so that the man’s totem can overcome hers and lead to pregnancy, it’s a whole Thing). She’s marked as different right from the start, and different because she blurs the line between male and female. As she grows older, she physically matures differently from those around her - Neanderthals mature much, much earlier than Sapiens, and as a result the clan starts to wonder if she might never start her periods and become a woman, if she essentially might not be “fully” woman. Even later in the book (spoilers), she essentially teaches herself to hunt using a sling and becomes extremely good at it, something Neanderthal women are absolutely forbidden to do, and when the clan finds out they have a whole conversation where they even outright bring up the idea that she might be “part male” because of it.

Anyway. I don’t know where I’m going with this, other than I think some of y’all with gender-species interactions might enjoy and relate to Ayla as a character that’s distinctly Different And Somewhat Estranged because of both species and gender stuff, and often because of the interplay between the two. She’s an interesting read on what happens when an individual of a species with (presumably) little to no instinctual difference between sexes gets raised accidentally by a species with heavy differences between sexes/genders and I feel like some nonhumans might relate to her.

[solrika]

I think you would write a werewolf Zeb fic to parallel vamp Kallus

So originally I was going to say no, I wouldn't (Zeb already IS a big furry thing). Then my brain went, "Well, under what circumstances would it be interesting to me?" and uh. Someone take this plot bunny.

Put it in a modern, all-human-as-default setting. Make a whole underground of magic-users and non-humans (with overlap). Position the Empire as an anti-magic/nonhuman cult thing with clear parallels to Supernatural hunters, because fuck 'em. (Supernatural's fandom produces some amazing work, but the show itself? White hetero male go-USA garbage.)

Zeb's a werewolf whose pack got decimated by the Empire. Kallus lost his friends in a rogue were attack as a young adult, and the Empire used it to recruit/radicalize him. Their Bahyrn is a result of Kallus hunting the Specters in a blizzard--he and Zeb get separated from their respective groups, and have to rely on each other to survive.

More background worldbuilding under the cut.

The analogue to Force-users are magic-users who can tap into the life-force (see what I did there?) of their surroundings to power their spells, instead of having to feed them with their own energy. This comes with an awareness of life (to replicate canon people-sensing and empathy powers), and higher potential for non-structured magic use. Eg. creating fire because you want it, without having to activate a rune or something. Dark Side is pulling life force without any consideration of how much/where you're getting it from.

Mandalorians hold the secret to beskar, a magic-nullifying substance. Each piece of beskar'gam (armor) they earn is keyed to a corresponding tattoo, allowing them to summon/dismiss their armor at will. Much like in canon, they're formidable warriors, and being a Mandalorian has more to do with following the culture than ethnicity.

If you want to do the Clone Wars parallels, then the Clones are magical constructs created to help the Jedi on their peacekeeping missions. They were later hijacked by the Empire.

Chopper is an ancestral family guardian. He usually takes the form of a big ginger cat, draping himself around Hera's shoulders. He can communicate telepathically to whoever he wants, but for shits and giggles, usually only talks to Hera.

Zeb isn't naturally purple--weres only come in normal-animal colors-- but Sabine helped him dye his fur.