#gryphonkind

[ironwoodwolves]

🎵 Been thinking about my kintypes, especially in light of all the stuff going around about voluntary vs involuntary otherkin and therians. Yes, I do think if the identity is something you actively choose all the time, that's a linktype, not a kintype. And that's fine. Otherlinkers are valid and part of our alterhuman community. But if it's something you don't choose - especially if it's just there, ingrained into your identity - whether you originally chose it or not, that's a kintype.

I've been questioning my own kintypes a lot. I'm a Canadian timber wolf, an African golden wolf, a coastal gryphon, and a kiko kitsune. There are vastly varying levels of choice involved in this.

To start with the completely involuntary, kitsune. I'm not just a fox, I am genuinely of the mythical variety. My body type is a big factor here, in that I'm built more like the statues you see outside shrines and I have five tails. I get strong phantom shifts with all of my kintypes and can therefore describe them pretty well. This particular kintype is not just involuntary, but against my will. I don't want to be this. I do not want this. I'm working on accepting it - because it's not going anywhere and ignoring it doesn't work - but I do not want to be this. For a variety of reasons. But I'm stuck with it.

My wolves are... complicated. It took me over 10 years to work out what sort of wolf I was because I thought I was just one. But the weird combination of phantom shifts and exomemories kept me from figuring out which one and I eventually let go of that question until I became active in the community again. I've been questioning them since realizing I'm a system, though. We have a wolf extranth, a coyote extranth, and another wolf therian in the system. I've felt sort of disconnected from my lupine identity because of all that and because of the questioning about whether my wolf theriotypes are real or a result of my sysmates. The timber wolf, which is the largest subspecies of grey wolf, could conceivably be attributed to Seer, who is a fictional - and particularly large - species of grey wolf. Likewise, the golden wolf could be attributed to Coyote Kid, as I did kinsider coyote while trying to figure out my second theriotype. At the end of the day, though, I've been a wolf all my life and it’s the first identity I associated with nonhumanity and therianthropy. It's part of me and part of who I am, even if sometimes I question that.

My gryphon is no less complicated, but for different reasons. When I first awoke as a gryphon, I did not want to be one. I was a wolf and had identified as a wolf therian for several years. And back then polykin were met with intense skepticism and the therian and otherkin communities were fairly separate. You were one or the other, you were not both. And my gryphon definitely fits more into otherkin. Even theriomythic doesn't work, as we weren't feral. But over time I got more comfortable with my gryphon and with being polykin and being both therian and otherkin, though I always (and still do, to an extent) considered myself a therian first. Lately, though, with how much I've been questioning my wolf theriotypes, I've kind of clung to my gryphon. No one else in here is a gryphon or even anything close to one. I've always been a wolf first and a gryphon second, including in internal sense of self, but with everything going on... I appear as a gryphon in headspace. I have a lot of really strong gryphon shifts, too. And I've kind of come to think of myself as a gryphon first and a wolf second. I didn't choose this identity, but I think that both consciously and unconscious I've chosen to make it my primary nonhuman identity.

[rowanwolf]

"Why Are There So Damn Many Ways to Spell Gryphon" - a memoir by a gryphonkin who wants to tag all the other gryphonkin but not spend eight years adding tags to their posts.

[lexidius]

this is a gryphon kin appreciation post

caw caw roar roar

or chirp chirp mrrp mrrp if that's more your thing

[ironwoodwolves]

I swear to god I'm starting to think I'm the only adult gryphon on this site...

[ironwoodwolves]

That feel when you account for like 50% of the gryphonkin tag...

[ironwoodwolves]

🎵 Love being at work and a thunderstorm starts up and just... gryphon. Full body phantom shift, mental shift, full out gryphon. And still trapped in a cubicle. No. I want to either be out feeling the rain on my wings or curled up in my den. Not stuck in a 3'x3' beige box of sadness.

[rowanwolf]

A howl on the wind

Welcome, welcome! I'm Rowan, just your average thirty-something wolf here on Tumblr. Check out the info under the cut if you'd like to know more about me. And don't be afraid to come say hi. I promise I don't bite, but I might sniff a little.

Name: Rowan Age: 30s Gender: Genderqueer Pronouns: Xe/xir preferred, but they/them is fine too Kintypes: Canadian timber wolf, African golden wolf, coastal gryphon, kiko kawa kitsune Kithtypes: Crow, raven, red-tailed hawk Plurality: Still working on figuring out the details and trying to get used to both terminology and headmates, but yes, we're a small system Interests: Lore, balladry, writing Additional: I (the host) am a suntherian. This means I'm always somewhere in flux between kintypes and humanity. What you're going to get with me varies day to day, but I'm always some level of shifted. The others have their own weirdness going on.

I don't have much in the way of rules for this blog, aside from the commonplace and common sense.

Be respectful of both me and others. I don't expect you to agree with me or anybody else 100% of the time, but I do expect you not to be hateful about it.

This blog is not a place for homophobia, transphobia, racism, TERFS, MAPs, zetas/zoos... Basically see rule 1 on this and also don't be vile. Although I will warn you that I do not tolerate intolerance. There are opinions and then there are threats and it doesn't take a genius to figure out which one transphobia or any other sort of hate are.

This is a therian/otherkin-centered blog with a side of plurality. If you have a problem with that, please see yourself out. My fur is too grey to put up with that BS.

I don't care how your system formed. If you're a system, you're a system. I'm not going to question your understanding of yourself. I expect you to trust me to know myself and therefore I will trust you to know yourself.

I am willing to answer questions on most topics. That's how people learn and I've been around long enough in enough marginalized communities to be fine with questions. Just ask them respectfully.

If you're a minor, I don't mind you coming to this blog with questions. But please understand that I will not be willing to accept DMs from minors. I'm in my 30s. I'm happy to talk to you on the dash (which is basically the Tumblr equivalent of "in public"), though, and everyone is welcome to ask questions and reply to posts.

None of the images on this blog were photographed/drawn by me. I can words, but I cannot art. I have made no effort to remove creator's marks if present. If any of these belong to you and you'd like them taken down, please message me and I'll do that.

That's basically me. I'd love for you to come introduce yourself. Say hi, hang around a while. I would really like to meet more alterhumans!

[rowanwolf]

Well, it's been a day. Worked today and we had a massive storm. We kept losing power. (Unfortunately all the shouts of "If the power goes out we get to go home!" every time the building went dark and everybody's computer died were false. This is a hospital, we don't close for shit. Think the storm's gonna get us out of work? Nah. Did you forget about the backup generator?) Anyway, massive storm. There was a good solid 30 minutes where it was raining so hard we couldn't see the building that's like 50 yards away. Storms like that always make me feel shifty. And I've been missing my phantom limbs horribly. The rain started and I felt gryphon-shaped again and oh my god was that a relief.

And then I got home and opened my closet and the ceiling had fallen in and I could see daylight and I now have to wash practically every article of clothing I own, but you know. This is fine. Everything's fine. My wings are back, I'm gonna just focus on that and not the fact that I cannot sleep in my bedroom tonight because mildew and wet leaf smell. (For some reason there were a shitton of leaves up there. I don't even know.) I'm about ready to cry over all the laundry - of course I've been crying at the drop of a hat all week, so take that with a grain of salt - but my wings and my tail are back and I missed them so fucking much.

I just want to be me. I want to have my own phantom limbs. I want to be correctly the wrong shape. XD I am coming to appreciate my headmates more with each shitty thing that goes on (I know I posted about my cousin on my system blog, but Idk if I put that here) but I miss being me sometimes. Just me. I miss my wings and all the ridiculous things I do to accommodate the size of them, I miss the urge to roll around the yard every time I go outside, I miss the wanting to just curl up in the full bathtub and sleep there. It's the stupid, inconvenient things that I miss and I think that says a lot.

[ironwoodwolves]

🎵 My hearthomes are a wide variety, but of them all, the biggest and most universal is water. I am a creature of water. As a wolf and as a human, I need it to live. Both for hydration and to eat the things that live in it. But it's deeper than that. I'm also a gryphon and, although I don't talk about it as much, a kitsune. As a kitsune, my element was river. You might think that should be changed to "water" more generally, but it shouldn't. Kawa (river) and umi (ocean) are two separate elements. I was of the rivers, of the fresh water. As a gryphon, though, I was coastal. True, as a kitsune I was one with my element, while as a gryphon I was an avian and terrestrial creature, but I was tied inextricably to the sea. We - my "people," though that seems an odd word to use - were coastal. We lived and died by the ocean and its caprices. We relied on it for nearly all of our food and many of the other things we used. And avian I may have been, but I was as at home in the water as a tiger. The sea was part of us and we belonged to it. I don't really know how to express that fully to anyone who hasn't experienced it.

Water is my hearthome. Running freshwater more than still and the sea more than any lake, but even so. I find my hearthome in going to the beach, in going to the river, in standing in the rain, even in something so mundane as taking a shower or soaking in the tub. It's never far away. Sure, it isn't always as I remember it, but the point is that it's there. It's there and it's home and it's something no one can take from me.

[rowanwolf]

Not me over here looking at wing shawls/blankets because work is cold and also seems to induce a lot if gryphon shifts. Nope, definitely not.

[rowanwolf]

I really want chicken. I have some in the fridge, I just know I shouldn't eat it. I cannot have chicken. Not without extra antihistamines. But I love chicken, it's delicious. And I'm having a rather foxy sort of shift (kitsune, actually, but that is still technically a fox) and food is one of my big things with my kintypes and having shifty days and whatnot. This is like I make salmon (or other fish, but mostly salmon) when I'm feeling gryphon-y. But I cannot have chicken. It's not even so much the chicken I want as the tearing it apart with my teeth off the bone. But I cannot have chicken. I am allergic to chickens. Just the entire chicken. Can't eat them, can't wear them, can't spend any amount of time in enclosed spaces with live ones. If I do, I started itching and my eyes get puffy. This is true of birds in general. So I cannot have chicken.

But what's more the point than my determination to eat things I shouldn't: Who the fuck decided it was a good idea to bring a GRYPHON back as a human who is ALLERGIC TO BIRDS? What sort of fucked up cosmic joke was this? Really, universe? Really?

[rowanwolf]

For all the feathery folks out there, I am writing a novel currently where the people just... have wings. There's literally no reason for this. It's only relevant to the novel in that it means the MC can fly places and I won't end up with a Tolkien-esque giant trilogy about going on a stroll to a place you'd really rather not because the plot said so.

Honestly, when this main character first showed up, I was having really strong gryphon shifts. I'm pretty sure my brain just went, "Humans have wings, right? What? What do you mean 'no'? Yes they do!"

Welcome to life with phantom wings. You have them, so now your characters do too. Except theirs are physically there.

[rowanwolf]

I've had this in my drafts forever, meaning to reply to it. Yay ADHD and lack of object permanence. But I agree with this entirely. I definitely side-eyed the term "kinsona" right up until I realized that's what this design was. It's not what I look like in this lifetime, but it's how I feel like I look and it's definitely how I see myself in my mind's eye. And a costume of it would really be more like taking off my human costume. I actually really, really want a fursuit of this design, now.

I actually have a tail I wear most of the time when I'm at home. It's 28" long and is neon pastel rainbow with a white tip. It looks like precisely none of my kin types and I don't care. What's comforting about it is the weight of it and feeling it against the backs of my legs. The colors are just because I liked the color. The tail itself is about being a little closer to the right shape. That's how a fursuit of this design would be. It'd be being the right shape. The colors are whatever, but I'd be more or less the right shape.

I'm seriously considering designing a river kitsune kinsona, a gryphon kinsona, and possibly one for each wolf. They'd be based on how I see myself during various phantom shifts. I feel like that might be a fun way to connect with that part of myself.

A friend of mine who's a furry harrangued me into making a fursona. After five years of him trying to get me to do it. It ended up just being... me. How I look most days. Wolf's head and forepaws, feline back paws, wings, tail with both a feline tail and an eagle tail... I hate to call it a "kinsona" because that sounds very KFF-y, but he kinda is. Really the big differences between and him (the fursona) are that I usually have a canine tail and that he's green and blue. I almost had him be natural colors, but that hit too close to home. Hence the green and blue. I may have to see if I can draw him.

It does kinda bother me when Clint calls me a furry. There's nothing wrong with being a furry, that design just doesn't feel like a fursona. It just feel like me. As I am most of the time. A suit of that design wouldn't really be a costume. I don't know. It's weird. I'm weird. I'm also not "out," so to speak, as a therian. But I think the thing is that this doesn't feel like a fursona, hence I don't actually have a fursona, and therefore I am not a furry. Also, these are two of my kintypes. They are me. And I'm not a furry, I'm a therian. Perhaps I'll make a fursona that isn't me-but-green.