#otherkin discourse

[petsemataries]

i feel like i'll be harassed if i say i don't really support choicekinning. but i'm open to criticism because i genuinely want to support it.

therianthropy, otherkinity, and terms aligned, are almost too taboo for me to support something like choosing to be aligned with those terms. i can't entirely explain why. to me, it's like... saying you chose to be trans. it's not fun, it commonly comes with dysphoria, and it's such a huge aspect of life. choicekinning almost feels insulting to me. like is my experience supposed to be fun? is it supposed to be something you want to choose? does that make me invalid? is my experience supposed to be somewhat distressing, or am i truly invalid?

once again i am open to anyone who might want to try changing my mind

[mechanical-sunchild]

"Otherkin identities come behind race stuff" do you hear yourself? You sound just like the "you can't kin outside of your race" people if someone is a wendigo then they're a fucking wendigo you're not even native so stfu

I'm sorry to tell you that no, being otherkin doesn't mean you can do whatever you want regardless of things like racism, cultural appropriation and respecting the wishes of closed cultures. Which is what I actally said, but yeah I guess that's 'race stuff'.

Your comparison is also very ignorant.

The 'you can't kin outside of your race' drama by and large started because of the large number of anime-sourced fictotypes and the general backlash against 'weeaboos' whether they were doing anything 'wrong' or not. By and large this issue was created and perpetuated by non-Japanese people trying to be morally good.

It was stupid not because 'it's not a choice to be otherkin!' but because fictional anime characters who are technically Japanese aren't real people and it's not harming any real Japanese people to identify as/be a fictional character who is technically Japanese.

You might want to exercise some kind of delicateness around the racial aspects of your fictotypes sure, but in general fictional is fictional and anime characters don't hold any special meaning or significance to Japanese culture other than artistically. I mean maybe some Japanese people were upset about it, but most of the people I saw were white and had created the problem in the name of Japanese people.

Meanwhile, real people in this world of various races who belong to various closed or otherwise marginalised and oppressed cultures have spoken out about how their folkloric, religious/spiritual and otherwise deeply rooted cultural figures are not 'cryptids' or similar. That they're sick of mainly white people changing the lore around these things and then using them in whatever way they see fit.

This includes for some who are aware of it, otherkin who use the names of these creatures and entities directly instead of just accepting that your otherkin identities aren't as important as the rights of these groups to tell you that it's closed off to you, you cannot use that name. Use some other name. Make your own creature name. Or, accept that you're part of the cultural appropriation of these creatures and practices and not morally pure, I guess.

It's not just the job of natives of the culture to defend it, by the way, what's the point of white privilege if I'm just sitting on my ass about stuff I know is wrong? I didn't invent this issue, I shut up and listened about it.

I'm not even saying that these people aren't what they say they are, especially if you believe otherkinism is purely involuntary, just that there's elements here which don't apply to other actual cryptids like mothman or bigfoot or something and our comfort as otherkin comes below not being racist and culturally appropriative even if like only two people are uncomfortable for racial reasons you should just not use that word.

[mewos-laptop]

Physical therians are valid,

Chosen therians are valid,

Mentally ill therians are valid,

Delusional therians are valid,

Traumatized therians are valid,

And all of you need to SHUT THE FUCK UP about them before I start making blocklists of your pathetic asses.

[lizardywizard]

This! Radical acceptance and blind faith are not the same.

Radical acceptance, in my understanding, is about questioning your kneejeek impulse to pick someone apart just because you're personally uncomfortable. You don't have to like everyone in the community, and you're even allowed to think a microlabsl is silly or weird.

But you also have to question your own "ick" response and the part of you that tells you that your first emotional reaction to something is correct, and when you find something that makes you feel that way, go and do research as to whether it actually is this terrible thing you've been afraid of. That's the "radical" part: you have to be willing to change when you get new knowledge. That's hard.

And then, even if you decide you're personally uncomfortable with something, don't be a gatekeeper about it. That's the "acceptance" part. If you genuinely have evidence that someone's doing direct harm (e.g. animal abuse), don't be a lone keyboard warrior - gather the community about it. Actual animal abusers get kicked out pretty fast here.

Otherwise, unfollow/block/mute if you have to. It's up to you to decide where you draw the line of real harm, but if making people justify their cane use is on the same side to you as preventing actual physical harm, despite other disabled people saying that normalisation of aids in society would help them, you're not very radical or accepting, and you're not going to get far in anything labelled "punk". Because gatekeeping does harm to your community too.

Question things, be willing to accept you're wrong, don't be a dick. If you value your personal, inner kneejeek reaction-as-scepticism over "letting people do thing", you're still welcome in the otherkin community, but you're not a punk, yeah?

Signed, someone who uses a cane because I have shitty hips sometimes, and also finds it species euphoric.

I’m heavily pro-endo so that statement was meant literally (polytherian does not experience any form of plurality but calls themselves a system purely based on having multiple theriotypes).

Even if we were just talking about self expression. As a disabled person, does being radically accepting mean I have to accept nonhumans who are not disabled (who have said they are not disabled) using medical equipment to express their nonhumanity (i.e. someone using a cane solely for the purpose of showing they should not be bipedal). Because, it’s their right to express that way but it doesn’t sit right with me that I’m watching someone use medical equipment as an accessory. It’s not harmful but it’s also not something I can agree with.

I guess my point is. Where do you draw the line with radical acceptance? If we believe everyone about everything, if we accept every form of expression, at what point can we recognize what is harmful and not? If a couple people are hurt by it, is that harmful or just a personal opinion?

By no means is any of this meant as an attack. I’m really just trying to figure out where the radically accepting folks come from (as I once thought myself to be RA but found it brought on much toxicity and drama to spaces that weren’t that way before). As I said. I love Beastpunk for all its other qualities… just not the radically accepting (basically blind faith in my opinion) part…

Look, as someone who walks with a cane and wishes it was as well-loved and accepted an accessory as glasses currently are, so I'd get less shit about using one and accessibility for canes would be more baseline, I think you seriously need to reconsider why you can't agree with that. And why, even though you openly admit it isn't harmful, it's still being used as an example in this scenario.

Let's open the doors on this-- we're talking about a concept where we are trusting people to know themselves better than we know them, and where we are accepting the aspects about people that they cannot change, and where we are accepting people's non-harmful forms of self-expression. Where does any of that suddenly scoop your ability to think critically and deeply about information being presented to you out of your skull? I'm hunting through my essay and, you know, I simply just can't find the part where we yoink out your common sense or ability to question others.

Beastpunk is against plenty of harmful ideaologies and communities-- like pshifting, for instance, for historical reasons as outlined in the essay. You can be beastpunk and have opinions about what constitutes harm and what doesn't. But, as I said before, you're conflating radical acceptance as spoken of here with tucking tail and showing off your throat and belly, so to speak. You are confusing radical acceptance within this framework with an inability to confront others and to dig in deep to question why you are uncomfortable with something to decide if it really truly causes harm or if it's just internalized shit you need to unpack (re: the cane thing). And look, I cannot give you that skill. And being beastpunk requires that skill.

I cannot in good faith recommend beastpunk to you when you have so blatantly misunderstood what it represents, and seem to have a total inability to grasp one of the underlying, core principles of it.

Other folks are also welcome to chime in.

[nyctohyloph0bia]

Honestly y'all need to chill with the "nonhumaness needs to be involuntary!"

The only reason you're saying that is due to wanting to present 'valid' enough for outsiders. It's not a choice so they won't bully you, like they do furries or other people.

And I hear you cry "but KFF!". KFF aren't nonhuman, they just relate. If someone comes over to me and says "I choose to be nonhuman today, I am nonhuman no matter what other ppl tell me. I genuinely identify as nonhuman." That isn't KFF, that's a nonhuman.

Truly, I'll just go "woah...that's so based". Because truly, what are our differences? We both genuinely identify as nonhuman....and yeah that's about it.

You might say, "they don't experience shifts!" There's nonhumans that don't experience shifts. And there's humans that experience shifts, we call it the "shifter's disease". Basically when a full human researches or is around nonhumans and begins feeling phantoms or feeling nonhuman, despite not being nonhuman. So it isn't exclusive to us.

"They don't have noemata!" There's nonhumans that don't have noemata.

"They don't suffer species dysphoria." Theres nonhumans that don't experience species dysphoria. Also cool transmed rethoric.

"They weren't born with it!" There's nonhumans that become nonhuman later on in life.

"They didn't wish their whole life to be a different species!" And? I can imagine there's some nonhumans that didn't even realize they wanted to be/were a different species.

"It's disrespectful to nonhumans that suffer due to their identity!" Another cool transmed rethoric. It's only disrespectful to you because you're up your own ass and believe that anyone who didn't suffer like you did, that didn't have it as hard as you isn't as valid as yourself. But what you don't realize is by having that belief you are excluding such a large portion of your community.

There's involuntary nonhumans who don't suffer from their identity at all and they're still part of our community.

The line between voluntary and involuntary can get blurry very quickly and hard to describe. But truly, you are no one to say who can use a label that rightfully describes their experiences.

Get real and truly think about why you're so upset at someone having a good faith identity.

[werevyote]

I'm nonhuman because I know therefore I am. Sometimes for some it's not that deep and we can just exist with that

[paleodeer]

I don't want to engage in discourse, but I've seen so many posts here lately talking about "Tik Tok Therians" and worries about them migrating to Tumblr.

I'm just imagining what it's like for them. Imagine coming to Tumblr for the first time and discovering all this hate and infighting. Your main way of seeing content of others like you has been taken away from you, so you turn to Tumblr, only to find hundreds of posts making assumptions and generalizations about you. Imagine coming from Tik Tok and the first post you see on here is someone calling you annoying.

Are we really as accepting as we claim to be? Now is the time to prove it.

Yes, I would absolutely be bullied off the face of Tik Tok if I ever ended up there, but that doesn't mean I will treat them the same if they ended up here. If you're scared of Tumblr turning as toxic and hostile as Tik Tok, maybe the answer is to simply avoid being toxic and hostile.

Also, a bit of a tangent, but sometimes the best way to go about things is just agreeing to disagree with those around you. I can't even count how many times I've changed my mind about something because I saw someone with a different opinion and had a civil discussion, or did proper research about something I was misinformed on because I befriended someone new. Of course we are all entitled to opinions, and we can't always see eye to eye, but that's life.

Personally, my blog will welcome these "Tik Tok Therians" with open arms. They will see that I'm weird, but most importantly they will also see that I am one of them, I am kind, and willing to educate without hate.

[psychology-department]

i'm starting to feel less and less safe in this site as a fictionkin, so i just wanted to call out (factkin dni please):

INTERACT WITH THIS POST IF YOU'RE FICTIONKIN

INTERACT IF YOU RESPECT ALL KINTYPES REGARDLESS OF MEDIA

[clownshifting]

"Exodus"

Now, you all know I'm not into drama anymore nor do I want to stir anything. I believe having a conversation rather than fighting genuinely helps the environment because too much smoke fogs our lungs. Let's be real, just for a second.

The alterhuman community as a whole needs to mind their own business.

When I say that, I mean, everyone. Even you. When I say that we need to mind our own business, I damn sure mean that every single alterhuman who has ever used the label, is using it, fits under it, or identifies complexly - needs to mind their own business.

It seems like everyone is speaking about and for everyone and the answers that are being popped up are from the "graymuzzles" and the popular blogs who just can't seem to stop not minding their own business, especially in conversations that has nothing to do with them or identities that aren't bothering anyone. This leads to a "monkey see, monkey do" effect where those followees then find time out of their day to go and single out the subject of their curiosity and further develop (negative or positive) feelings about their identity. They turn their real experiences into discourse topics.

This extends to any alterhuman, by the way. Let's make a scenerio. Subject B is factkin. R is the follower. G is the blog owner. G has a lot to say on subject B because subject B, in their eyes, can't fit into the otherkin label because of it not being "historically connected" to otherkinity. R sees this and agrees, but because of the message, R wants to share said message and have their own opinion.

Here's where that should end and where people should mind their own business. You see, R publicly posts this on their own blog and continues the cycle of posts seen by those who are of subject B's identity pool. Those who are "of B" are then left feeling hollow and out of touch, and then with how little (recent) the community "of B" is, their relavence is dwindled down into being a tie breaker for many in the community, where the utilization of DNIs and BYIs and BYFs listing subject B or those "of B" on it either negatively or positively.

While this is an oversimplified version of it, this has happened in the alterhuman community before by use of graymuzzles and dogpilling in public servers. I was hurt by the discourse around subject B back in 2020/2021. This has happened online for decades and will continue to happen in a cycle, as it always is, because those in the alterhuman community who wish to be the authority - understand not what it's like to be the minority. They already have the blog and the following to simply persuade others into that drama and agreement because they're seemingly wiser. And it's a shame that you'll see this mob mentality with no way to stop it all while they will be the ones calling your identity a cesspool of cults.

Let's step back for a moment and breathe... Ready? One, two, everyone in the alterhuman community should mind their own business. Better?

You may be asking, why did I put that screenshot up there? Don't worry about it, it'll come back lat -

So apparently someone in the alterhuman community decided to open their mouth again with an opinion about something that had nothing to do with them because it's not their identity, it's not their group, they didn't even know it was happening. And I'd have to ask ... how?

These are not all from 2025.

How did you not know?

It's because you don't hang around those groups of people enough to formulate an opinion. Which is when you should actually begin minding your own business. Actually, no, it's because you don't care about these groups until they're actually needed to be used as a way to belittle other groups OR prove you're right. You've classified all those who are exoduses as tokens of their group in which you use in a slot machine to win. That's all you've done and your discourse, your disdain for other groups, makes them absolutely disgusted being in the wider alterhuman community.

Now. What is the act of minding your own business? It's simple.. "If it ain't got anything to do with you, it ain't got anything to do with you."

No hate watching, not vagueposting, no reacting, no thinking about it or theories or trying to figure it out. If you truly wanted to know about it, you'd research outside of these spaces and find understanding there - you wouldn't see it happening and immediately ask another person who doesn't fit any of these groups their opinion - an opinion that can very well sway groups of people.

If you're already deep in the shit, step away like you're mature enough to be on the internet, and claim fault for engaging. Turning to another discourse is not disengaging.

Mastering the art of minding your business is important too, especially for those who are impulsive or can't seem to shake the need to talk about it. You may be knowledgeable about the situation, but if you are not mentioned and if there is ongoing discussion, you are not needed. In cases where your opinion does matter, especially if you are putting a label or flag or symbol in place, you very well can speak. Other cases like an essay, misinformation, corrections, and open discussions are alright too - the only places which don't need your help is "the stirring of the pot", aka, discourse and identity experiences.

Nobody needs an "uhm, actually" when they're talking about their frolicking in the fields of identity.

"If it ain't got anything to do with you, it ain't got anything to do with you," extends to if you don't know a subject either. If you don't know, refer to another, or post resources. You can't be the authority on every single topic, stop trying to and mind your own business. Stop contributing to ableism and gatekeepy practices that enable others to feel safe enough to share derogatory fables and terminology in your circles, because that also gives way for egregious amounts of backlash and discourse.

Why mind your own business? That's simple... it's not hard to find it in yourself to be kind. A lot of people think that helping is kind, and I agree. You should strive to help in the alterhuman community - in any community really - but help doesn't extend to knowing everything and formulating opinions where there needs none. I don't need to know why a homeless person is homeless in order to help them get a home. I don't need to know why you're physically nonhuman or factkin or fictionkin or a linker in order to help you feel welcomed in these spaces. Help doesn't mean knowledge, it means understanding and sympathy, even if you don't have any. It means being kind enough to share the message to those who can help.

This.. exodus is not new. CLCZs have been feeling disconnected from the wider community since they were a topic of discussion (as late as 2019) as a whole and opinions about their actions when you're unaware of it is unhelpful and nosey. It's a way to steep yourself back into be reliable and all knowing. It is a way to see yourself as able enough to be authority. Let go of that, find what you're good at, and find joy in the art of minding your own business and sharing resources instead.

You should be your own authority, for only you can have control over your palace of the mind.

[plural-on-paws]

May I expand. It’s not about the “animal packers” and etc. I believe that it’s nobody’s business. The issue is how nonsensical it sounds to say “I am an animal” out loud. People will laugh at you. You will damage your own relationships. Think. Is it worth it? And why do people act like that? Because it’s crazy.

There’s a popular conservative lie that is spread around of “litter boxes in schools” and “people identifying as animals” and that’s NOT REAL. It comes from a complete fabrication to make trans people look worse. Don’t try to make it real. I don’t care if it’s “been around for decades” that doesn’t change anything. It’s not about streamlining your identity to make it more digestible to outsiders who don’t understand, it’s about the threshold where “identity” crosses between “genuine insanity” and if you can’t SEE the clear line between those two things then there isn’t much hope for you.

Hey anon! Great to see you actually just hate therians! Hooray!

Even longer post, will also be under a cut!

Firstly, addressing the very popular but very wrong lie of "kids are using litter boxes in schools": These are for service animals. These are put in place by schools who have students (or teachers) who have disabilities that require them to bring a service animal to school with them. This has nothing to do with therianthropy, it is just a lie that Tiktok caught on to and spread it like wildfire.

(Now, to add in before this section, this isn’t to “throw clinical zoanthropes under the bus” with therian discourse. There’s nothing “wrong” with clinical zoanthropes, just like there’s nothing “wrong” with therians. I am simply stating facts. That’s it. I think it’s important to be educated about things like this. Let’s continue.)

Secondly, therianthropy is not "being crazy". It is not a mental illness, it is not a disability, it is not wrong. However, you may be interested im learning about "clinical lycanthropy" (or zoanthropy, different from therianthropy). This is an extremely rare, delusion-based psychiatric syndrome characterized by patients believing that they can or have physically transformed into a non-human animal. It is essentially the delusion that one can shapeshift into a werewolf (or similar animal). It is associated with psychosis (aka delusions and hallucinations). It is considered to be an expression of a psychotic or dissociative episode caused by another condition (like DID, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression).

This article describes a report done on clinical lycanthropy. Over 130 articles were screened and between 1852 and 2020, there were 43 cases of clinical lycanthropy identified. That's right. 43. Now, have you seen how many therians are on Tiktok? Yeah, more than 43. And they're definitely not from 1852. So how can you say that therianthropy is "being crazy"? And don't say "they're just delusional" because the only delusion that somewhat accurately presents like therianthropy is that of clinical lycan/zoanthropy. Professionals would know if someone is genuinely delusional, but why would they care about such a small group of people in the world?

There are also studies done on patients with clinical lycanthropy actually have differences in their brains. The part of the brain known to be involved with represent body shape can display unusual activation in patients with clinical lycanthropy, showing that when patients report their body changing and shapeshifting, they may genuinely be perceiving those feelings. Have therians ever claimed to you that they can feel their bones and skin and limbs shifting and changing to become that of a non-human animal? No, because therianthropy is not a delusion. There are often no physical feelings in the body of a therian when they, for example, experience phantom tails or ears etc. That begs the question, would you say that an amputee experiencing phantom limbs is psychotic?

So, people identifying as a non-human animal is real! There are reported cases of it in the medical field! Shocking, right? It must be crazy to you that there are documented medical cases of people identifying as animals, allllll the way back to 18-goddamn-52.

Thirdly, therianthropy has nothing to do with being trans. It never has, it never will. No one has ever claimed it to be. Being trans means that your assigned sex and birth does not match with how you perceive yourself and how you want others to perceive you. What you might be thinking of is being trans-species. This is okay too! It just means that your assigned species at birth (human, obviously) does not match with how you perceive yourself and how you want others to perceive you. See how I used two different words? Species and gender?

Plus not all therians are trans-species, like myself! Generally I don't have much of a desire to physically become a wolf or a cat or a shark. I'm comfortable being perceived as a human, even though sometimes I just wanna wag my tail and run around and put my ears back and growl! I know that some therians feel super uncomfortable in their human body and wish that they could change! And that's where the species-affirming packers come in. It's like being transgender but it is not! And no one is claiming it is.

Another thing is that a lot of therians tend to be neurodivergent. But you're not saying that therianthropy is ableist, are you? No, you're just trying to connect two dots that are miles away. Neurodiverse people can feel a disconnection with humanity, and that can explain for some people their alterhumanity. Of course, not all therians are neurodivergent nor do they believe that their neurodiversity are the root of their alterhumanity. Have a look at this poll from Reddit, almost two thirds of participants indicated that they're neurodiverse!

Now, being neurodivergent calls for being discriminated against in and of itself. Same with being LBGT+. And being any race except white. Do you really think that therians who are LBGT+ are going to be discriminated against more for their alterhumanity than their sexual orientation or gender? No. Do you really think that therians who are neurodiverse are going to be discriminated against more for their alterhumanity than their disabilities? No again. Do you really think that therians who are POC are going to be discriminated against more for their alterhumanity than their race? Absolutely not.

Ultimately, people have been discriminating against POC, gay, trans and neurodivergent people long before they were called "weird" for being a therian. People have been killed over simply being gay or trans or neurodivergent or . Therians may receive death threats, yes, and that is disgusting behaviour from hateful people, but no one (to my knowledge) has been killed simply for being a therian. The discrimination against LGBT+, neurodivergent and POC communities runs way way way deeper than anyone saying "therians are weird". Do you think that therians in these communities are going to be more worried about being laughed at because they're a therian than being literally slaughtered for their race, disabilities, sexual orientation or gender? No! There are way worse problems for people to worry about than people saying they identify as animals! It truly is not that deep to say "I identify as an animal". Some people identify as inanimate objects but you don't seem to care about that (although there is nothing wrong with identifying as an inanimate object).

Also I can't even comprehend what you're talking about "streamlining your identity to make it more digestible". How is identifying as an animal more digestible than identifying as a man instead of a female like I was born as?

[the-fallen-collective]

emails are not shown, everything is put in a way where you can provide reasoning (preferred but not required) and putting your tumblr user is optional

This is the one time where our dni does not apply because we would like responses from a lot of people

If you see this, it’d be greatly appreciated if you could take it and reblog it /nf

This is really just an experiment we’re doing ourselves to see other’s views and opinions (also out of boredom. Boredom creates curiosity)

(So sorry for the cross tagging but is it cross tagging if it applies?)

We do not agree with everything mentioned in the form. We actually disagree with a lot of it or have differing/complicated opinions from different alters

[orderofthe-pyramids]

THIS IS TO ALL THE DIVINEKIN WHO ENCOURAGE WORSHIP ON THEIR BLOGS

*inhale*

YOU’RE WEIRD AND ENCOURAGING PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS THAT ARE HARMFUL TO BOTH PARTIES

[saccharine-fiction]

Wanted to add my two cents to the discussions about being more radical in label use and application vs keeping the definitions tighter and more niche.

I think for me, it boils down to this. Using labels broadly, for things they weren’t originally inclusive of, makes it more difficult to find others with a similar experience to yourself. I’m seeing this discussion mostly in therian/otherkin spaces currently, especially relating to voluntary identities. I wanted to give a fictionkin perspective on it since 2020-2021 was a very tough time in that community with KFF.

I don’t think KFF as a concept is bad. If someone wants to voluntarily take on an identity for fun, then by all means enjoy it! However. Since they still broadly used the term “fictionkin,” it made it a lot harder to track down spaces where I was actually welcome and fit in. I sort of closed myself off for those few years, keeping just to friend groups I already trusted. Whenever I tried to join a bigger space or discussion, I’d get hit with the “but you know you aren’t actually X right?” or “fictionkin don’t actually have memories because they’re just doing it for fun.” Yeah spiritual fictionfolk like myself still fit under most definitions of “kin,” but it felt like those using the terminology more broadly didn’t understand my experiences at ALL. That’s why terms like fictionfolk have grown in popularity - a direct reaction to the word “kin” being inclusive of for-fun and voluntary identities to the degree of misuse and removing the original community members.

I’m not here to be the vocabulary police or the therian police by any means. Voluntary or involuntary, do what you want with labels. I just wanted to share why some folks with involuntary identities are being reactionary toward this subject. There’s always going to be the fear of being unable to find folks like oneself when the general usage of community terminology grows broader. Sure, you can always clarify “involuntary identities” if you’re seeking that, and that should be okay. It’s not bad to want to find others who have been through the exact same as you. It’s not exclusionary to do so. Some of the struggles that come with an involuntary identity are different than the struggles with a voluntary identity. They both have their ups and downs and a lot of shared experiences, but they do have a set of differences too!

I’m sort of rambling at this point, but I think if the community at large is willing to open terms like therian/otherkin to include voluntary identification, then it should also be acceptable to specify that one is an involuntary/etc. therian or otherkin for the sake of finding more niche community spaces where they can relate to others more closely. And if you have a voluntary identity, it’s always good to assess why you feel the label therian/otherkin is more appropriate to describe your experience than another term. (Otherlink/copinglink spaces are very bare bones even today so I totally get that those aren’t people’s top pick. They’ve never been treated as equally valid, no matter how much people profess that, and I think there’s some serious personal reassessment that involuntarily identified folks need to be doing on that front too.)

[otherkin-confessional]

being transgender doesn't inherently fetishize or harm any gender. being transspecies doesn't inherently fetishize or harm any animal. also, disliking transspecies but being okay with otherkin, nonhuman, and therian is absolutely hypocritical.

I think people need to understand that transracial and transable aren't bad because they have trans in the name. that's a very white able bodied neurotypical perspective actually. they're bad because they fetishize PoC and disabled people, water down cultures, appropriate cultures without knowing anything about them, and usually come from deeply rooted insecurity. as a disabled PoC who is transgender and transspecies, im not screaming and crying just because they have the prefix "trans," because that's not a prefix specific to transgender people.

🌌

[flinnir]

am I the only one who doesn't really understand why some humans are obsessed with this idea of predation?

like idk? just as a dragon, just really weird to see people aesthetize us as predators, especially when they make a point to shit on prey animals. I used to view myself as a prey animal due to trauma, but I think I'm just not either? I have a draconic prey drive, but I resonate more with being a scavenger.

my mom is really weird about hating on prey animals, saying they're weak and dumb, and like?? do you know how hard it is to survive in a world where predators are constantly hunting you??

like it just makes me think of the "haha I'm so cool and edgy and better than dumb prey animals!" like bro... you do realize that lions and wolves and eagles are literally just eating to survive right? they're not having the "i'M tOtAlLy AwEsOmE" Olympics for social funsies. they're not killing just to fuel their egos.

[ungodlyangel2506]

i am completely against image gen ai, which is trained on countless artists works without their consent (also known as stealing) by companies who then make money off of this, which is then used by businesses trying to find a cheaper alternative to paying the very artists who were stolen from, used by people scamming those actaully trying to hire an artist, used for filling social media with slop for views, and more, however i dont like a lot of the anti-ai posting i see online

its all "this is HUMAN art" "made by HUMAN" "only HUMANS can make art" i recently seen someone who made some stamps and buttons for artists that dont use gen ai, and they were all focused on the artists being "HUMAN" and i just feel like weve lost the plot a little

the problem with image gen ai was never that art created by humans is inherently better just because its made by humans, in my mind, its that The Image Theft Machine is thieving images, and then screwing over the artists it theived from ! its not that the "special magical human soul is giving the art life" its that people are losing their jobs because it costs less to ask Sloop-AI 3.0 or whatever the fuck to give you a shitty approximation of what you wanted, rather than to hire an actual artist

and i just think this sucks so so bad, not only because as this image generation has improved ive seen people actually jump ship and say that ai art does look like it "has a soul"(??) now, but also because not all artists are humans !!!! this just very specifically bothers me, similar to those "we are all human" inclusivity tshirts and the likes

its not just human artists getting stolen from ! art made by wolves is getting stolen too ! art made by angels is getting stolen too ! art made by dragons is getting stolen too ! even art made by robots and ai is getting stolen ! image scrapers dont care about whos behind the art, it steals all of it regardless, and in my opinion art made by those of us who arent human is important also, and also deserves to be treated with respect.

tldr: to say that ai gen images are bad because they lack "human soul" is greatly missing the point, and also this is an otherkin blog so you can connect that dots on that /lh