#nonhuman essays

[tempestgnostic]

On Therianthropy

or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Label

As with all identity groups, the therian community has dealt with its fair share of misinformation, ignorance, and exclusivity throughout its storied history. For quite some time, I felt connected to the label—in that profound way when something just fits—yet, I wasn’t certain if I fit the bill. I had seen the common misconception that therians were limited to only “Earth animals.” There are many issues with this definition, and plenty of folks have gone over this already. This discussion between irritatedandroid and spiritus-sonne was one of the first posts I saw that gave me some background on this misconception, and it struck a chord with me.

As I began to look into it more, I kept finding challenges to what I thought I knew about therianthropy. Below is a snippet of the forum post that ultimately led me to identify with ‘therian’ as a werewolf rather than ‘otherkin.’

You can find the page right here if you’d like to check it out for yourself! The author is Lynna Landstreet/Lynx Canadensis at time of posting. (9/18/1999 on alt.horror.werewolves)

This might get a little lengthy, so here’s your courtesy readmore.

This word, ‘liminality,’ is everything that I am. Liminality, balance, breaking down false dichotomies—this is what it means for me to be a werewolf. As a quick disclaimer, there are almost certainly werewolves out there whose self-perception is similar to mine, but they use ‘otherkin’ instead. That’s completely fine! As who-is-page points out in this post, “While it’s important to understand the definitions of various labels for a variety of reasons, these labels are not the end-all be-all to what you can or cannot call yourself or identify yourself by.”

I’ve written previously about how my werewolf identity is deeply intertwined and ultimately inseparable from my queer identity and my experiences as an autistic person. I don’t just toe the line between person and animal—I practically live in the split tongue of therianthropy. I’ve made a home at the crossroads as an autistic, nonbinary butch who’s had top surgery and is on HRT, who rejects boxes and binaries like the plague.

I embrace the ways in which I challenge norms, call out injustice, ask “Why?” and “Why not?” of my society. It’s the reason I named myself Taliesin, after the influential Brittonic poet and bard. He lives on as a creative genius and master satirist, and—according to legend—a figure who can be invoked and channeled by poets who continue his legacy. I carry on the name of a trickster figure who connected with the universal creative spirit—the Awen—and aim to do the same myself whenever I create art of all kinds.

I see my own ‘purpose’ in life as self-defined, not fated, and I find strength in the fact that I can be part of an ever-shifting process of change. Above all, it is transformation—the divine lesson of The Werewolf—that lies at the heart of my therianthropy, and that’s pretty damn therian, isn’t it? The word resonates with me almost as much as my own name, and that’s enough for me.

I encourage all of us to consider how our language can help us understand each other, and how the hard-and-fast rules and restrictions proposed by even the most well-meaning folks can be counterintuitive. It’s not that any label can “just mean anything” — rather, labels can offer a general framework to describe and relate our experiences to others. A label should be the start of a sentence, not the period at the end.

I’ll close on my favorite part of Page’s post, linked above: “Identity is unique, it’s not something that can be charred well-done and then flipped into a tupperware container for tomorrow’s lunch.”

[knifedog-machina]

(Non)Humanity and Species Dysphoria: the Forced Transformation Trope

Written by Gavin on August 25, 2024.

As a nonhuman, do you ever think about why there's so many stories and myths and legends about humans being turned into animals? You ever wonder why it's usually a punishment or a curse, or why the characters try to do whatever it takes to become human again? You ever think, "I don't understand, I would love to be an animal and get rid of my human body, what's the problem?"

As a human myself, one whose system has been in the alterhuman community for years, I hope I can help bridge the gap of understanding here.

The way many humans see being turned into an animal as a curse, the way they'd be incredibly distressed about becoming nonhuman?

That is species dysphoria.

That is a human experiencing species dysphoria, because being perceived as nonhuman or other-than-human causes the exact same feelings of pain and wrongness and disconnection from their body that a nonhuman can experience when perceived as human.

(Particularly, this might be an orthohuman, someone who has a normative relationship with their human cultural and species identity, as opposed to an alterhuman, who experiences alternative/nonnormative humanity or a species identity separate from humanity. Human alterhumans can also experience this sort of species dysphoria - hi, I'm one of them.)

Imagine being your species your entire life, the way you know you're intended to be, living in a body you're comfortable in - and then having that body ripped away from you. Being forced to live in a form that doesn't match who you are, what you know you are, and desperately wanting to find a way to change back because you know you're not meant to be like this.

If this sounds familiar because it's what you experience as a nonhuman - that is how a lot of human beings feel about being transformed into something nonhuman. It's the feeling of being the wrong species! It's the desire to return to the form that you know as yourself!

The fact that orthohumans are born into the species they identify as does not mean that they could never comprehend your nonhuman experience. You can explain your nonhuman species dysphoria to an orthohuman. Given all the examples of unwanted transformation stories throughout human history, I think you're likely to find that they'll understand when you put it in that frame of reference.

"How would you feel about being turned into another species against your will, leaving behind everything that feels good and right and comfortable about your human body? That sounds horrible, right? That's how I feel, being nonhuman in a human body, and it's distressing in the same way you would hate being human and stuck in a nonhuman body."

I know that the gap between humanity and nonhumanity looks enormous. The horror of, say, werewolf mythology looks like a completely alien experience when you are a wolf, so you see being transformed into a wolf as nothing short of a wonderful experience, and you don't understand why anyone would see it as horrifying.

But if you understand that it's not about the species, but the experience of species dysphoria, of being trapped in a body that has never been yours and desperately trying to return to one that feels like you, well - that's a lot more understandable, isn't it?

Humanity and nonhumanity are not two opposite ends of a binary, destined to never understand each other. I know many alterhumans who are both human and nonhuman, and their humanity is an identity in much the same way as their nonhumanity. Humans are just another species on this planet, as bipedal tool-using social primates, and we have our species identities just like many nonhumans. You are not as alone in this world as you might think you are.

There is room for understanding and connection. Your experiences as nonhuman are not purely individual, not wholly unique, not utterly incomprehensible to human beings, and this is a good thing. The gap isn't actually as wide as it seems. You can reach out and cross it if you just remember - you have far more in common than you might think.

[paracosmic-gt]

My Gender is Their Gender

People forget the true definition of xenogender, which is a gender that cannot be described or experienced or fully explained by humans. And while this often leads to hoards, as people try to capture their understanding of their own gender. But for me, it’s been slimming down instead of gaining, turning to one point.

My gender encompasses the gender experience of animals, most specifically, the animals I am as a nonhuman. Parts of my gender are obvious, I wear brown feathers like the mallard, I avoid the mane when I can. But underneath there is this iceberg. The xeno part of my gender that I can only describe as the gender an animal experiences. A gender I in a human body will never fully quantify.

Lets for example, take the bird. Humans like to make it simple, applying their gender norms to them, female takes the eggs, male fucks off. And yet male emus are the most devoted fathers, female cuckoos abandon their clutches for other hens. Okay then, maybe males are big and flashy, and females are brown. And yet, a large majority of bird species are not sexually dimorphic. Femininity and masculinity encompass and share so many aspects that they don’t exist. And the “social construct” aspect of gender is exposed, and the rules break. Human gender means nothing to an animal.

The lioness who hunts for the pack grows a mane, the mallard who cares for the chicks grows in their iridescent colours.

And that, in some way, is me. Femininity, nullness, neutrality, transness, binary. All of it, in all its wonder, and all of it that i cannot handle to think of, is mine. I’m a female animal and that basically just means nothing and I love it. It fulfills everything neutrois and nonbinary is meant to be. I feel so gendered, it’s just in a way that humans don’t understand.

I’m brown like the mallard. It makes me female and yet it just doesn’t. and I have nipples on my belly like a lion and a lioness. None of it means anything and all of it is everything. It makes me want to chirp loudly with joy.

[sleepyc0smic]

My paws are not meant for writing essays.

These paws are for roaming the woods.

[thepluralmaster]

Being a Lion Kemonomimi Therian

Written by Haruki Ikuta (she/her), interpreted by Kogane Tsukioka ⚔ (no pronouns) My true form, from the very beginning, is human for the most part. Except for a few differences: I have lion ears and tail. My behavior is also very human most of the time, but I still instinctively curl my body like a cat when sleeping, have the urge to carry some objects with my mouth despite having functional hands, having one of my go-to vocal stims somewhat resemble an attempt at imitating a lion's roar, and so on. Even then, my animalistic behavior admittedly doesn't completely line up with what people would expect of lions. This is how I rationalize it for myself: kemonomimi characters are usually portrayed with typically cute behaviors. In fact, many such characters we're aware of (which is every character we can remember except for the Friends from Kemono Friends) very rarely show any animalistic behavior matching the nonhuman species they are. In addition, most kemonomimi characters we've been exposed to are cat girls, complete with their usual playful nature and meows. This may be why I subconsciously adopted traits that are closer to house cats or cat girls than lions. Despite all that, I'm still sure that I'm a lion. At first I hesitated on using the therian label for myself because most therians we've seen seem to be more animalistic than I am, and I was afraid that I'm "too human" to use the label. Thankfully, now I'm more confident in using the label because according to my own standards, I'm animalistic enough to use the label, and that's a good enough reason for me.

[sillyfreakx5]

every time i see nonhumans+ complaining about "tiktok therians", i get reminded of how "tumblrkin" used to be a derogatory term for those not taking their identity seriously and only doing it "for the aesthetic", or even earlier, in the early 2000s, how the weres/therians on the alt.horror.werewolves forum were complaining about the new community members not taking it seriously. XD

i suppose us complaining about the youth doing nonhumanity wrong is a tradition lol. Like of course kids aren't posting philosophical essays about nonhumanity, of course misinformation amongst them is rampant (especially considering the medium of tiktok), of course some of them aren't taking this very seriously or might "grow out of it". It's ok!!

Obviously, we should lend them a helping hand in clearing up misinformation and teaching them about the full variety and wonder of the nonhuman or alterhuman experience. But we shouldn't look down on them, and treat them as if they're bad somehow. As well as that, sometimes we should just accept the generational and platform based differences between us. It's ok. We've been through this before, and we'll be through this again when the next wave of newbies rolls around.

[goopy-nightmares]

I Am Fiction: A Personal Essay on Fictional Identity as A Being Who Has Always Had A Fictional Source

Cartoons are a staple of human childhood in this world, and have been for decades. From the comedic slapstick and simplistic one-off stories of the genre’s beginnings, to the more complex and story-based shows of the present, cartoons come in a wide variety. I fall somewhere in between, being from an educational childrens’ show all about teaching life lessons and kindness, though without a consistent storyline. It's not a show that truly exists here, being a fabricated background setting for a mascot horror game, but I’m a cartoon character, a Toon, all the same.

Before we get too far, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Sprout Seedly, one of the Main Characters of Dandy’s World and your local anthropomorphic strawberry who loves baking and is a bit overprotective of his fellow Toons. I’m a Toon brought to life by my creators, Arthur Walton and Delilah Keen, so I could interact with and teach kids who came to Gardenview Educational Center and Museum. I’m both a cartoon and a living person, and now I’m living in a human body as part of a plural system with people from many other “fictional” worlds.

Living here and knowing so many others’ experiences with being fictionkind, and comparing it to my own, I started thinking a lot more about my own life and how unique it really is. So, I decided to write this, putting my own experiences out there with being a Toon; with being fiction brought to life even in my old home. Being someone who blurs the line between fiction and reality in a different way than being a fictive, fictionkin, or another fictionkind identity typically does.

Back home, I always knew that I was a cartoon brought to life. Episodes of the Dandy’s World cartoon played on TVs around the Gardenview building, kids would come up to me saying I was their favorite in the show, and merchandise with my face flew off the shelves in the gift shop. Most importantly though, was how my creators viewed myself and the other Toons. Arthur was a kind man; he’s the one who initially drew us all and brought us to life on the screen, before Delilah used Ichor to bring us into the real world years later. Despite being the one to give us physical life, Delilah didn’t tend to see us as fully alive. We walked, talked, and entertained guests; we all had our own relationships with each other that differed from our show counterparts. Delilah did care for us in some way, but despite everything, in the end we were simply her creations, simply things that she made. Arthur was more outwardly caring, but even then he still carried similar beliefs.

Those beliefs shaped my identity then, and it shapes my identity now as well. Whereas most other fictionkind were fully real people without a “source” before awakening or coming here, I never fully was. I was always a piece of fiction, even back in my home at Gardenview. I understand now that the Gardenview staff were, in a way, denying us personhood despite us being living, sentient beings. It doesn’t bother me though, and honestly I take comfort and pride in it. I’m fictional; I always have been and I always will be. It's a fairly unique experience even within the widely varied alterhuman community, and I value having this life and set of experiences. 

Remembering the joy on the kids’ faces when they watched mine and my best Cosmo’s cooking shows, their excitement whenever one of them ran into me off set and we could talk about whatever, even the rarer occasions when adults came to me for baking advice and recipes or because they liked the cartoon too; all of it brings so much warmth to my heart. I know better now from living here and interacting with media how much it meant to those guests, being able to meet their favorite characters in real life and talk to us like normal people. I’m glad that my existence was able to give them that joy. And seeing the joy that these other versions of my friends and I bring people now, even if it is in the form of a mostly child-friendly horror game, brings me that same warmth.

Fiction doesn’t inherently mean “not real,” when it comes to some situations. For me, it is a state of being; a part of my identity. I’m real, but I’m also fictional. And I wouldn’t give that up for the world.

-🍓Sprout (He/It)

[hopefulhaven]

I want to see more long and in depth writing about alterhumanity and theriantrophy. the experience, the discovery and growing up alterhuman, the community, all of it!! the sillier side of the community is great and all, and feels relaxed and comfy,,, but I do really want to see deeper dives on the experience and why we feel this way

I would love if anyone could point me towards writings or videos like this if they've created some or know someone who has, and I think I probably will in the future ... I might make video essays of my own, who knows?

[frameacloud]

This short essay is for anyone to start learning about us therianthropes and otherkin. It gives reliable sources for every piece of information. The statistics come from surveys that had a sample size greater than one hundred people. All of this is to make sure that this essay is the most accurate representation of us possible. It is in simple English: it uses only common words and simple sentences. That makes it easier to translate, and I hope people will translate it into many languages. It has been translated into German, Dutch, Estonian, and Polish. Chinese, Croatian, and Spanish are in progress. If you want to translate it, please contact me. You can email frameacloud@gmail.com, or send me an ask on Tumblr, or post in the discussion board at the bottom of the itchio page.

[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.

[hidden-among-stars]

Fitting In - or The Lack Thereof (A Stream of Consciousness Essay?)

I often think about my place under the label of therianthropy and the way I often feel like I still don't quite fit in. It's odd - I can blame that feeling on a lot of things, but none of them seem to give the full story behind it.

Maybe I don't fit in because I'm an adult, and so many therian spaces are filled with kids. There's definitely some truth to that, but then I go into therian spaces with solely adults and I still feel like I don't quite fit in.

Maybe I don't fit in because I don't experience the act of shifting between a more human and a more animal state, and so much of the therian experience seems to be focussed on what it's like to shift. And there's some truth to that too, but there are plenty of therians who don't shift at all, and I still feel like I don't quite fit in with them either.

Maybe I don't fit in because I only have one theriotype. Which is ridiculous, because a lot of folks only have one theriotype... And I still don't quite fit in with them either.

Maybe I don't fit in because I'm a contherian with experiences that have stayed steady through my entire life, from practical infancy up to now 25 years later. But there are other contherians out there, and I still don't quite fit in with them either.

Or maybe it's because of my anymic identity - inherently I won't quite fit in with anyone because my species identity doesn't really match anyone else's, let alone anything that is known to exist. But it's still not quite that either, because there are lots of anymic therians experiencing what it's like to be something without name and potentially without equal, and I still feel like I don't quite fit in with them.

In reality it's probably a mixture of all of those things, but that still doesn't seem to be the answer. In all of those cases I still should fit in somewhere, and yet here I am, feeling like I don't.

The question of whether or not my identity's "origins" have anything to do with why I still feel like I don't belong has definitely crossed my mind a few times - so many folks can fit theirs into neat categories as past lives, spiritual, psychological, etc., but I'm certainly not one of them. Somehow it feels like I am all of those and also none of them at the same time.

I feel like maybe I was just born with the wrong soul in the wrong body - that's spiritual for sure. And I feel like maybe my brain is just completely and totally wired wrong - that's psychological. But there's something else. Something not quite spiritual and not quite mental.

I started to wonder if maybe I'd feel more at home with the holotheres and physical therians, but no, definitely not there either - I understand that I'm in a human body, I am under no impression that I currently physically am my theriotype in any way (and my species dysphoria won't let me forget that). So it's not really a current physical identity. I'm also under no impression that I can physically transform into my theriotype in any way, so it isn't Clinical Lycanthropy either.

There is something viscerally physical about it, though. I never really believed that I could physically transform or that this body was entirely nonhuman, but I absolutely believed that someday I would break free from my human skin and become my nonhuman self. I believed it lived just underneath my skin and that when I became an adult, it would emerge and I would be free from my human existence. Obviously that never happened, as I sit here 25 still painfully human in shape and form - and painful it is, as my body has seemed to continuously deteriorate as I grow. What started as just severe asthma and immunodeficiency transformed into multiple physical disabilities over the years.

My disabilities, my chronic illnesses, these have nothing to do with my nonhuman identity. Logically, I know that. Emotionally, it feels like my body is rebelling against its own existence, as if it is rejecting the mind and the soul that are so unfit for living within it, willing to sacrifice itself in the name of eliminating the viruses that are the spirit and brain that don't belong inside it. This is one of those experiences that I can confidently say I have never seen mirrored in the alterhuman community in any way - maybe i just haven't been in the right spaces to hear about it, or maybe it's just too heavy of a topic for most folks to talk about, or maybe I really am alone in this experience.

Circling back to my younger self's belief that my nonhuman self physically existed just underneath my human skin, I can't blame them for feeling that way. This is another experience that seems either non-existent or extremely rare in the community: my phantom appendages feel nothing like what most folks describe them as. I feel them in their full forms, but those full forms feel ghostly - they "clip" through things, I am fully aware that they aren't actually there. That in and of itself seems to be a fairly common experience... but for me it's combined with another sensation. I can feel these things - the wings, the tail, the claws, the teeth, the ears - as if they are physically trying to push through my skin. It's not pain, but it's a strange sort of pressure. I wish I could explain it better, but... just imagine. Imagine feeling as though there are other limbs or different appendages just beneath your skin, pushing to break free, constantly, all the time, every day, for as long as you can remember. It's uncomfortable, it's awkward, and it gets even more uncomfortable when the ghostly versions of the limbs "clip" through things. A signal seems to get sent from where they phase through whatever they're phasing through, all the way to the point where I feel like the physical versions are trying to push out from - that results in an even more uncomfortable tingling/pulsing sensation, both from that basal point and from wherever the "clipping" is happening. This kind of an experience is another one that I have not yet seen mirrored in the community - whether or not others experience it, I don't know, but it's a point of mental contention for me. Others explain their phantom shifts and I just cannot actually relate to it. I feel like what I experience is so fundamentally different, and it's another reason why I often feel like an outsider in the community.

As I continue to ruminate on this feeling of not belonging in a community that I should belong in, I come up with so many answers - like the way I've always known I was nonhuman but how my exact species identity, despite having many consistencies between them all, was so difficult to figure out, and how I still feel like I don't have a full grasp on exactly what it looks like. Every time I try to imagine exactly what it looks like, the image is blurry, shadowy, not quite whole - I can make out the vague shape, I can see its golden yellow eyes, but that's about it. And then I wonder if maybe this thing must be some kind of a past life identity, maybe I'm seeing it through its own eyes, not quite able to recognize itself beyond the most basic shape and the eyes, but it doesn't feel like a past life. It doesn't feel like a current or future life either, though. It just feels like the life I was supposed to be living, a life I keep running and reaching toward but always falling short.

And then I think about the way the community talks about shifting, or the lack thereof. As I said, I don't shift, I just constantly experience everything all the time. But what I mean by that seems so different from others. Other contherians exist as both human and nonhuman simultaneously - I seem to exist solely as nonhuman, only human in physical form, and via masking. When I fully allow myself to unmask, there is nothing human about me other than my body. Those who have seen it will attest. It's disturbing to witness, it's uncanny - it skips past cringe and dives straight into "would be seen in a horror movie" territory, apparently. The way I move, the way I react, the way I sound (if making any sound at all), the way I stand (or don't stand, if I'm somewhere where I can physically be on all fours), I become something seen as monstrous in the eyes of orthohumans and alterhumans alike. It isn't my species identity that is monstrous - on the contrary, my species identity poses little to no threat to humans - but I suppose it comes down to the idea of the uncanny valley. When I fully unmask, it becomes glaringly obvious that I am something inhuman in a human's body. I have seen the reactions some nonhuman identifying folks have had to me being mostly unmasked - in the case of one, seeing me fully unmasked - and it becomes clear that, even though none of us identify as human, there is something different about my identity. There is something fundamentally different about the way I experience it.

I want so badly to know that my experience isn't the only one of its kind, I want so badly to know that i have a place in this community (and that I have a place in this world, frankly), but I keep trying, and I keep coming back over and over to the realization that what I go through lies in some liminal space where I definitely don't fit in with orthohumans but I don't quite fit in with other nonhuman identifying folks either.

I'm not leaving the community, it's still the closest I have to finding others even vaguely like me, but I fear that "out of place" feeling will never go away. That I'll never actually find the place where I really belong.

[spoopyloonerisms]

thinking of rick riordans books and how no matter the pantheon these children inherit problems caused by the adults. drawing parallels between these kids being left in the wreckage of their parents decisions and having to step up and solve shit they didn’t cause.

it is an inheritance by blood.

in this essay I will—

[knifedog-machina]

Being Human: A Species Identity Compare and Contrast

Written by Gavin on June 27, 2024.

Hey, I'm Gavin, and despite hanging out in various alterhuman spaces, I'm 100% a human person. I live in a system with two headmates who are also human, but identify as other species as well - Max as a velociraptor therian, Jude as a dog archetrope and an android. In contrast, I specifically, completely identify as human.

What's so special about that, being human? Statistically, it's nothing remarkable - most people on Earth identify as human after all. I think what's really interesting is that, over the past year, I've been connected to communities that all contain people (or non-people, as the case may be) who partially or fully identify as nonhuman - otherkin, therians, a solid number of fictionfolk and some alterhumans. Therefore, I feel like I can compare and contrast my species identity to the experiences of others, in a way that most people who philosophize on what humanity is don't get the chance to.

We tend to think of humanity as The Default, a non-identity, since the majority of self-identified nonhumans were raised as human, and we all live in human societies. Most people don't bother clarifying that they are human unless they're dehumanized, because it seems obvious that being born human means you're human. Given humanity's position as a default state, a lot of nonhumans see it as an opposing and fundamentally different experience from nonhumanity.

In this way, species identity is similar to gender identity - cisgender people, who identify with the genders they were assigned at birth, are often assumed by transgender people to have a fundamentally different understanding of gender. I feel like both of these assumptions are oversimplifications, ones that miss out on a lot of nuance, and throughout this essay I will be comparing gender and species, as a trans man whose species is as important to him as his gender.

There are some common threads I've noticed when it comes to having a sense of identity. I wouldn't call them universal experiences, I can't read minds, but they're frequent enough to be significant. They may be more obvious when it's an identity at odds with your body (e.g. being transgender or nonhuman) - but I'd go so far as to say that plenty of cisgender (and human!) people also experience these feelings, and simply don't have the words or desire to describe their feelings with these terms.

First off, identity euphoria - the internal sense of alignment, joy, and contentedness one gets from presenting and being perceived as their identity. A trans man might experience gender euphoria from presenting and being treated as a man, and so do many cis men. Think about how thrilled many guys are when their beards fill out; that's facial hair as a presentation of masculinity, and gaining it is a gender euphoric experience. In a very similar way, a nonhuman experiences species euphoria from being perceived as their species - and so do I, as a human being.

I’m trans, so I know how gender euphoria feels for me. I find that the more I'm just treated as a man, the more that the bright elation of being correctly gendered turns into a sense of quiet satisfaction - this is what I am, and everyone knows it, and all is right with the world. There's no reason to think too much about it unless something calls attention to it, and then I feel confident and comfortable enough in myself that other people's judgements are more annoying than hurtful. I exist peacefully in my body, happy with the way people see me in it, and sometimes I'll do something that feels extra masculine and grin about it for five minutes.

My species euphoria falls into the same sort of category - I feel content with my body, the way it matches how I feel internally, and the way other people treat me because of it. I feel fundamentally comfortable with my human body map and movements, having a flat face and hands and nails, walking upright on the soles of my feet. I feel comfortable when I'm acknowledged as a human and a person, when I do something that’s known to be human - when I wear different clothes to express myself and keep out the cold, when I cook a meal to eat with people, when I sing for the fun of it, when I write and draw to share something creative, when I interact with human technology and invention and creation. Humans have been making clothes and foods and songs and adding marks to the world for about as long as they've existed, and we're still doing it, and if I think about it too long I get emotional. I’m human and I feel deeply connected to humanity, and most of the time I don't think about it because I'm treated as one, but sometimes I’ll notice that I'm doing something that just feels fundamentally human, and it's really nice - sometimes species affirmation can be in the little things, like wearing a beat-up jacket or writing a personal essay.

On the flip side, there's identity dysphoria, the distress experienced when one's identity doesn't align with the way they present or find themselves perceived as. A trans woman might feel gender dysphoria because of her body hair; many cis women also feel less feminine if they don't shave. Species dysphoria is a well-known experience in the nonhuman community, the distress of being seen as human or having a human body when you don't identify as one. Given what I said earlier, hopefully it doesn't come as a shock that people can have the opposite experience - feeling distressed about being seen as nonhuman. I get this kind of species dysphoria.

It feels odd to talk about species dysphoria when I’m not nonhuman, but I still feel it. Mostly it comes up in the context of being in alterhuman spaces, being accidentally mislabeled as nonhuman through proximity to those who are, and I've also felt it in the context of playing around with visualizing myself as nonhuman in art. My body map doesn't have nonhuman features, parts like wings or tails or claws or pointy ears. Picturing myself like that feels wrong, it feels like sandpaper, like there’s this foreign thing attached to my body and I need to cut it off so I can stop this crawling sense of my body not being my own. I used to have an awful amount of gender dysphoria, and I feel like the two are very comparable experiences - the distress of feeling like your body doesn't match your mind. I got top surgery, so the gender dysphoria is gone, and thankfully my body is actually human, because I would be just as distressed about being seen as nonhuman as I was about being seen as a girl.

It’s kind of fascinating that I feel this way, that I can’t picture myself as nonhuman without feeling incredibly uncomfortable. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the entire furry fandom, a subculture of people - most of whom definitely identify as human beings - who regularly depict themselves as nonhuman animals for fun and self-expression. We’re all human, what gives? Do they have a more malleable sense of species identity than I do?

Maybe, maybe not. I don't have a straightforward answer to that - like I said, I can't read minds, and I'm just one person. But I do have a couple thoughts on the way humans interface with nonhumanity, on the topic of enjoying it.

See, I get dysphoric about being considered nonhuman, but I've found some loopholes in there. I’m completely fine with my fictional counterpart - the character getting tossed into different AUs for our personal enrichment - being turned into a vampire, a werewolf, a selkie, an android, a person with wings. How's that any different from other expressions of nonhumanity? Well, for me, those stories don't induce dysphoria because they're about humanity, at the end of the day - how people cope with being seen as or turned into monsters, the way they treat one another and the way they treat supposed outsiders, the ways society might change if humans were slightly different animals but still called themselves human. If I were a werewolf, I'd still be human, just one living with the consequences of also being a wolf. If I had wings in a world where all humans have wings, I'm still human in the context of that world. That baseline sense of humanity is what’s important to me.

In a similar vein, I can't stand seriously being seen as nonhuman - but pretending to be nonhuman? Roleplaying? Dressing up in a costume? I can do that. I feel like there’s something very human about being fascinated by the abilities and strengths of every animal that's not your own kind, and wanting them for yourself - the human desire to fly like a bird, swim like a fish, hunt like a wolf, run like a deer.

I think a lot of what people like about fursonas is this sort of wish fulfillment, of having the cool traits of all these fascinating animals, and having that animal self-portrait still being anthro - human - enough to relate to. It's animality through an anthropomorphic lens, through how fun it can be to play pretend and express yourself as a cool deer-wolf-lion hybrid. And usually, those animal choices are symbolic, and the fursona reflects the personality of the person who made it - more often than not, it reflects the cultural stereotypes of what that animal is, instead of being true to what the animal is like as a living organism. It's about the way humans see themselves in animals, not necessarily the way we are animals. So, ironically, being a furry tends to parse as a very human thing to me.

So far, most of this essay has been a comparison, since I see a lot of similarities between identifying as human and identifying as nonhuman. Putting my species into my list of self-identifiers, like how I'd list my name and pronouns, has cemented it as a crucial part of how I view myself and want to be seen. That's the same way a lot of nonhumans think about their species. I have a strong sense of species identity, it just so happens to align with being human. Contrasting the categories seems harder to me.

I could list a bunch of different nonhuman traits that I lack, but it would be on the same level as saying one kintype is different from another. I don't care about walking on all fours, and neither does Max as a raptor. I don't instinctively try to bite a threat, I’d rather kick it, and I know a horse would agree with me. I don't long for the sky and neither does Jude, they're a dog. I don't have a prey drive and neither does a hamster. I don't feel like a nonsapient animal, and neither does an elf.

When it comes down to just being a certain species, there’s not that much of a difference between identifying as a human and identifying as a dragon. There's a bunch of traits that feel correct, and a million others that don't feel right at all.

I could say that I don't understand feeling like I don't fit in my own body, but I do - I had gender dysphoria. I have species dysphoria. If one of my partners is having a phantom shift while co-fronting with me, I invariably end up either leaving front or nullifying their shifts, because I just don't feel comfortable if our combined body map is nonhuman. I don't have memories of being a different species than I am, having abilities that I don't have in my body now, but those aren’t necessary to be nonhuman in the first place.

Do I need to find a contrast that makes sense? Does there need to be some fundamental difference between human and nonhuman identity?

I don't think so. It's all identity, at the end of the day.

[paracosmic-gt]

Am I Borrower Folcintera?

The title is rhetorical :)

Author: J/June of Wanderstars

Word count: 786

📎🧵🌱🧵📎

Folcintera is something that describes a folklore connection right? If so, I think Borrower folcintera is the way I should go. I look at the way borrower and brownie are interchanged and I wonder if all this goes deeper...

(read on below the cut)

I tried archetropy, but I think this label is the way it's heading. So I'm gonna talk about it.

First I talk about myself. I have my own understanding of who I am that mimics the story of Borrowers everywhere. Beyond my current stature, my life seems to follow a Borrower's existence.

I found myself coming to front in the middle of a breakdown, as we hid in a closet, and I felt safe. Behind walls, peeking in at a house we never felt fully safe in. I've always been on the outskirts and underfoot, even going so far as to imagine what would happen if I suddenly was the size I hoped. I'd run and hide. I often felt that I would be safer with a stranger, with a chosen giant, than my own family.

"Be good to them and they won't squish you."

I am a vulnerable creature, sensitive and shy, suffice it to say I adopted this role wholeheartedly. Fawning and caring for everyone so I wasn't hurt. Hiding in the shadows and the corners, borrowing the smallest favours so I wasn't noticed for taking too much. Constantly stifled in a place I was supposed to grow, until now I take up such little space.

I look human, but I'm not on the inside.

As a child we loved fairies, used to write notes to them wishing for wings to fly away. Now I return to the depiction of a typical fairy and I wonder about how I look to them. I've been grounded, living inside a house for so long, crazed and wild as a feral mouse. How they welcome me into lush forests and calm grasses. Tell me that it's okay, that I'm safe now. That I've survived, and I'm still alive.

And then, well, I met my giant. And he reminds me I'm not all typical borrower. He reminds me that, just like Arietty, I haven't developed a distrust for all giants. I don't have the "sense". Like Sho, we met in greenery and I learnt to trust him. Because he is the one who manages to make me feel safe, comfortable, and loved.

I am a tiny, my size is incredibly important to me. It is affirming and lovely and spreads like vines to make me a bug, a borrower, and maybe even a fairy too. It's born from suffering, but now it is my choice to return to a giant's house. Running underfoot becomes a game, a happy and delightful game, as I re-enact my trauma and reconnect to my own heritage. Because as much as the borrower lifestyle is pain, it is who I am. I can no longer pretend I am human, and I embrace the good, and the bad.

Now it comes to folklore, how others see me. Borrowers as a species seem to share a strong resemblance and connection to brownies or broonies, which are household spirits from Scottish folklore. However, there seems a split between the two kinds in general view. Brownies are associated with Fae, goblins, gnomes, etc. while Borrowers are typically viewed as "tiny people" without any specified powers. Joining the ranks of Lilliputians and tinies everywhere. The depictions of both range vastly online and in literature, from insectoid to rodentish, and magical to mundane.

For me, the line between what I am and what I see depicted of my kind is blurred.

To what extent am I mystical? I don't have magic, but when I get really excited I feel wings buzzing behind me as if I was Fae. Scientifically, I can't exist at my size, so there must be something else inside me. I also don't find it alarming that I am a Borrower who is therian identifying, a lot of my nonhuman-ness feels very in line with being a tiny creature forced to survive on the outskirts of society.

To what extent am I human? I have written stories myself, of a giant meeting a borrower and coming to realise they are the same levels of intelligence and sophistication. I sometimes look it, but inside I don't feel it. I've lived inside a human dwelling and adopted their customs but I'm not a human. And I think my fellow literary Borrowers would agree.

So I am left with a bit of a puzzle to fill, but pieces are coming into place slowly. All I know is that I'm a Borrower, whatever that even means, and folcintera as a term seems to acknowledge all the points I mentioned above.

Another thread untangled, in a complex yet simple appearing web. All starting with giantess comics on DeviantArt and a kid who wanted to fly.

[stars-self-ships]

This is what it's like talking about your non-human romantic F/Os to your friends who don't self-ship.

[that-dreaming-dragon]

The Dream Dragon Myth

Cross-posted from my dreamwidth, link in the title.

When others talk about resonating with films and media, there's often a divide between wilderness/nature vs city/industrial. Often nature is where the hearts lie for more feral inclined or beast-aligned folks. Dragons are usually among this group that are drawn to nature.

Through the breadcrumbs I've left myself, I can confidently say where my resonance lies in the media genre--folklore and fairytales. This also circles me back to my initial hesitance with the term folcintera. At first glance, I was unsure if it applied to me, merely seeing myself as a generic mythkind, simply a dragon.

However, after having terms to define my experience of having a kardiatype that is divinity-made-by-human and an archetype which is Mew that is a being that is mythical, little-l legendary, whimsical, mysterious, a bit mischievous and chaotic, as well as fluid, abstract both as a concept and as a creature--it all coincidentally aligns with me being a creature of dreams, chaos, vacillant in my shape, but definite in my draconity.

This realization of the self, myself, that is defined by my very own personal myth and folklore did not come from a singular instance of learning of the term folcintera, or interacting with media that are tied to fairytales or mythologies. This took time, and a certain level of self-acceptance, along with the unintended nudges from the communities around me via the discussion of alterhumanity.

I have contemplated that my otherkinity has some degree of voluntarity within. I as a species never quite make sense, even as a dragon, which tends to be from a conglomeration of other creatures. When I first had an idea of my appearance, it happened while I was within a draconic (and furry) community. I'd mentioned before that orange is as much a part of me as my draconity is. But what of all the other features that define me? From the bits I could recall of that community, the dragons are more typical of the scaled lizards with webbed wings, many have breath weapons of some sort. I remember a blue anthro dragon with military and firearm tied to the lore of their dragonsona.

Was it my desire to be different than the mainstream?

But looking back at my old drawings, most, if not all are decidedly random in their features. They'd either be some sort of snake with lots of extra, or hexapod being with claws for limbs and a pair of wings of various sorts, sometimes more, or avians with wings and legs combination, or they'd be piscine. Perhaps because of the media I grew up with, the draconic creatures are varied in their features, or perhaps due to my cultural upbringing.

I came from a background that has Buddhism, Taoism, some local folklore, and maybe Shinto or Shinto-influenced beliefs, and others that I cannot define. I grew up with my nonhumanity. I experience my life from my teens onward with the knowledge of my past life of being a dragon. I learn from a culture that acknowledges dragons as mythical and reality, and stories of dragons capable of shapeshifting, of controlling wind and rain. I read mythologies about dragons from many cultures of this world and their diversity.

When I had a complete image of myself, I was round, circular in shape, bright in colors, and dominated by orange so vibrant, you'd only possibly find it in birds, the fur of beasts, and wings of fowl. I also had a pet-like quadrupedal form, a form that is typically seen as an "eastern" dragon, and a form that is typically seen as a "western" dragon. There's not quite a point in mentioning the anthro shape, as I still do not think that is a form in itself.

There was not much separation between human vs nonhuman. I am nonhuman through and through.

As a whole, what is made up of me, my sense of self, the essence of my identity, is an amalgamation of all my experiences and knowledge, both intrinsic and potentially influenced by my surroundings. I am a dragon, it is the simple, unshakable truth. The how I am as a dragon is far more complex, it speaks of my story, my personal mythology.