tekkawolf

[tekkawolf]

[tekkawolf]

I think one of the things that makes it hard for (some of) us to connect to the greater alterhuman community is like: the vast majority of us who aren't fictionfolk are anthro animals. tekka & vurren are actually the exceptions, despite being our main fronters lol. hell, even those of us who are introjects are majority anthro.

there's discussion of human alterhumans, yes, but what about the nonhumans who basically fill the same role as humans? we did a quick search of "anthrokin" to check if there's been any posts, and it seems to be a term people use yet there's rarely anything there. might be a case of "people feel like their experiences are too niche to be talked about", idk. at any rate, local anthro dog woman here, hoping any anthro nonhumans (animal or otherwise) out there feel a little less alone tonight

[tekkawolf]

I wish people wouldn’t assume that therians only ever want to be fully animalistic, and completely non-human. I want to be a dog, yes, but I still want to be bipedal, I still want to remain part of human culture and society, as well as be involved and contributing to it. I like to do uniquely human, or just hominid, things, like language, cooking, or climbing. I don’t want to have an owner or master or live in a kennel or eat kibble. I do want chew toys and pats and to be able to smell like a dog, both the olfactory ability and the body odour.

Being completely dog would make me just as uncomfortable as being completely human.

[tekkawolf]

“Good talk.” pencil & marker

Posted using PostyBirb

[tekkawolf]

"Nonhuman Identity, Gender, Autism, and Mental Health: Results from my Dissertation," a panel by Bloodmuffins, presented at Othercon 2024.

Summary: "Please join for a discussion of the results and process behind my dissertation study, which looked at nonhuman mental health, minority stress, resilience, and the intersections between nonhuman, gender, and autistic identities. This was the largest and most comprehensive scholarly psychological study on nonhuman identity to date in terms of sample size, topics investigated, and community demographics assessed. This panel will share the results of the study; specifically, I will discuss interesting demographic trends in our community (spoiler alert: we're hella queer and neurodivergent), how nonhuman mental health compared with human mental health, and minority stress and resilience factors our community exhibits. I want to express a huge THANK YOU to everyone who participated, and I'm excited to share the results with everyone!"

[tekkawolf]

For every “voluntary alterhumans are just fakers/furries,” I choose a new linktype out of spite.

[tekkawolf]

the unfortunate part of having a wolf's nose is that everything smells too powerful. I'd love to enjoy candles and perfumes and fragrances but 99% of them are overwhelming and unpleasant

-tekka (he/him)

[tekkawolf]

While we're on the topic of "weird misinformation that has spread on Therian tiktok." I remember seeing a video where someone was like "oh yeah I used to be a therian for 8 years but I just kinda fell out of it."

And almost all the comments were like "what do you mean you "stopped being a therian"? Therianthropy is forever!"

Who...who told them that? Where did this idea come from? Becuase it is very much not true! I have said it before and I will say it again: identity, in every sense of the word, is fluid. What labels you use, how you style you clothes and hair, even down to what food you like to eat, all of that has the possibility to change over the course of your life.

There will be aspects of yourself that will stick with you for your whole life, but there are plenty of other things that will change over time. Including alterhumanity.

So, if you see someone promoting the idea that "therianthropy is forever, you can't stop being a therian." I encourage you to try and educate them, becuase I think this way of thinking can and will be harmful to young therians. If someone in the community finds themselves changing their mind about their identity, they might get it in their head that they have to "stay a therian or else they were never valid." (Again, very much not true!!)

So there's my two cents and half a walnut for the day 🐻 👍

[tekkawolf]

I'm very human, but I'm not human.

I think like a human, I usually react in a "human" way, but I'm not human.

I see a lot of posts from therians, nonhumans, and pretty much any alterhuman talk about how not human they are. What about those who are in some ways? Or seem human, and are perceived as such, but aren't?

I'm an extremely domesticated bat and maned wolf. I tend to come off as human, and I have been keeping my nonhuman animal instincts at bay, while portraying my human ones as my usual ones. I feel human in a nonhuman way, though. My "human" instincts are just my animal ones in disguise. The joy I feel, feels nonhuman, but I often express that in a human way. My anger feels nonhuman, but I express it in a human way. The chaos in my mind I feel when I'm away from society feels nonhuman, but I show that in a human way.

It feels weird, being a maned wolf that has human instincts, but also natural. I grew up with it. I grew up with human society, so I'm used to it, but at the same time... it's a little trippy to know how different I am from my maned wolf and hoary bat siblings. I'm shaped differently, and behave differently, but we are fundamentally the same.

I'm proud to be a "human nonhuman animal". I'm human-shaped, but I am still physically a maned wolf and a hoary bat. I have human instincts, but I'm still nonhuman. I usually have what others would consider "human" urges, but I'm still nonhuman.

My nonhumanity is based on how I feel, not based on how I act. Not even just how I feel... but I just KNOW. I KNOW what I am, and I'm firm in that.

[tekkawolf]

routine performance of humanity at the amphitheater

[tekkawolf]

The animalism in humanity

If you don't know, I am a holothere. I am not what society thinks a human is supposed to look, act, sound, or think like. In all ways, I am a shifter.

So I should be able to feel more comfortable in that community, right?

I was the one who brought the anchor to the physically nonhuman scene as their current symbol. So why did I feel so left out of the community that I helped contribute to? In 2019, I was fighting for physical nonhumans to even have their origins respected, alongside others who were doing the same thing as me but much louder. Why did I not feel good about helping? About this space being the only safe space for me, the only safe space I did not ruin for myself?

I guess, maybe, it's who I am.

When they say physically nonhuman, you usually think of a cat or a wolf. Well, I'm a human. I am physically human, I am a human shifter. Do you see how off putting that is? It brings questions, aren't you already human?

And the answer would be no. If that's the case, then that implies all alterhumans and physically nonhumans are human all the time but only become nonhuman when they acknowledge it. It's not true like that.

I am a feraux, or a feral human. In the wild, we look nonhuman because we have essentially changed our entire way of life to survive. In captivity, we look exactly like humans. To me, it's a species of shifter that never needed to look like an animal, they just had to mimic humanity instead. Our natural forms are not human.

So to see people happy about being coyotes and lions and birds and merfolk.. it's nice. I'm happy that I have a place here. But I want to talk to more feral humans, I want to meet more humans in alterhumans spaces that are not just the usual fictionkin or factualkin. I want alien humans, humans from different planets, humans with different biology, humans in different skin.

I want to talk to humans on all fours, humans in different gravity, humans in different shapes.. I want to meet more humans who are not what society thinks a human is by blood and biology.

I want more humans in physically nonhuman spaces. We are physically nonhuman too.

[tekkawolf]

In-system relationships can be so intimate.

Waking up together, opening the same eyes, and stretching the same limbs. Yawning in time and saying a good morning that only you who are involved can understand what it's for.

Sharing a meal, not only from the same plate, but with the same hands and the same senses. Deciding what to eat together, something that fits all of your tastes.

Curled in the same bed, in the same blankets, in the same body, drowzily mumbling about nothing and everything to each other. Joking around and feeling their sleepy laugh as if it were your own.

Living life, and inviting them to share yours and your time in it--performing your daily tasks in the unison of cofront. Seeing and hearing and feeling everything together.

Feeling them blush when you flirt or compliment them. Feeling their joy when you get them a gift, or how safe you make them feel simply when you're around them.

Enveloped in the same love, from the same brain, with the same feeling of care for each other palpable between you. Feeling the emotions you feel yourself, coming from the other person. Feeling their love for you, in the rawest, most direct possible way.

[tekkawolf]

unfortunately cursed with the "has so many thoughts on the world and can't help but get invested in discourse" autism

[tekkawolf]

New tail! RUFF RUFF!

[tekkawolf]

How do you reference yourself when speaking about your identity?

Constantly saying "my coyote theriotype" or "my dog identity" is so clunky and tedious, and also just feels weird and wrong. My dog identity is me, but if I just say "my identity" it's not specific enough since I am multiple creatures and I often want to speak about different parts of myself in specific.

When I'm thinking in my head or journaling I most often reference my identities as "my dog" "my werewolf" "my coyote" and so on. Which I guess is also still not perfectly accurate, seeing as my identities aren't really a separate part of myself (save for my werewolf on occasion. It's a whole thing). But it's easy, and it reflects the fact that different aspects of myself are not constant.

ie: my dog is often more intense when it rains, or my coyote really enjoyed laying in the dirt, my wolf loves when it's cold out, etc, etc.

For me, it's just a quick shorthand way of saying "X thing heavily impacts, triggers, is innate, or is associated with X part of myself, as opposed to impacting or being associated with my overall animal existence.

I'd be curious to see what language others prefer to use for themselves!

[tekkawolf]

“It’s obviously valid to be bugkin but you also can’t just expect people to get over it when they have a genuine fear!”

I’m afraid of dogs.

Dogs put me extremely on edge. I avoid them while outside and if one’s in a room with me I’ll try to leave or else start to panic. Especially medium-sized and larger breeds. Mere images of dogs may not give me a panic attack, I will admit that, it's not a phobia. But if you want to talk hypocrisy, if you're opening up that discussion:

Hey dog therians, dog otherhearted folks and clinical cynanthropes, what if everywhere you went, the unspoken attitude of the alterhuman community was—

Don’t post dog photos or talk about being a dog in the main alterhuman tags. Don’t talk about your shifts, your instincts, or your kind in the main tags. If you’re a CZ, don’t talk so openly about your biological reality. It’s extremely triggering for people with cynophobia. The idea of physically being or becoming a dog grosses them out to briefly think about, so try not to discuss your literal existence. If you must, at least trigger tag yourself with #tw dogs or #tw dog mention so people can stay safe by censoring things that will hurt their mental health. It’s okay if you’re dogkin but in my DNI I'm going to write something like, don’t follow me if your blog hosts too many graphic close-up images of dogs doing dog things, even if you censor them. Don’t add dog photos to open posts in the alterhuman tags, you have no idea who might be sent into a panic attack by images of yourself so you should play it safe and only put them on your own posts. And stop being so offended by people who comment on posts about pet dogs or dog facts saying they want to bleach their eyes or kill it with fire, they can’t help having a phobia.

Not great, is it? Fortunately, and I do genuinely mean that, this is a sentiment you will only see once, on this post, completely satirically. Except it’s just a real sentiment for bug therians/hearted and other invertebrate alterhumans. Of course what I said was satire. But if it pissed you off when you thought it might not be, please, contemplate on that reaction, really spend some time on it.

Also, if you're wondering what I mean by "other invertebrate alterhumans", (and I'm sorry for how heated I got when I was writing this part last night even after editing it down)

You know I’m a bug zoanthrope too, not just a bird? And see above if you're wondering why I never said shit about it, just said I was a centipede therian and even then said I was just questioning and didn't really talk much about it. Am I allowed to talk about it without tagging it #tw body horror, even though I obviously don’t fucking find my own body to be horror? Can I talk about it without tagging it #tw bugs like just the very thing that I am needs to be censored for people's well-being? I'm sorry if I come across judgmental. Offline I constantly interact with people saying they’re a nature lover but centipedes are the only thing on Earth that they still hate. And I have to come online knowing that any of those people could be bloggers in the alterhuman tags and it’s my responsibility to tiptoe around them. “Because centipedes are scary and disgusting.” Because I’m scary and disgusting. My brain is not capable of hearing a difference and I can’t change that. It is so much my reality that it's the same emotional mix of anger and anxiety and hurt that would be (has been, lol) triggered by someone ranting about how much they hate Jews or trans people to me.

[tekkawolf]

as we watch the othercon 2022 panel on abnormal instincts by @/who-is-page, we can't help but feel shame at the people we used to be. we used to be judgemental, immature, in constant fear of everyone and everything.

it makes us think about the bad takes alterhumans will put in the tags. it makes us think of the ones who will not listen to reason no matter what. we compare them to ourselves, who were once unable to acknowledge other's opinions, who were dead set in our ways: and we hope. we hope they will one day break out of the miasma. we wish them the best on growing up and maturing. even if they can't be better now, there's always the chance they'll be better in the future. it doesn't negate the harm they've caused, but those who have harmed are not doomed to harm forever. we hope one day they'll be welcomed back into the community and given a chance to be kind

-🐺 tekka (he/him)