Hope everyone had a happy Halloween yesterday!

Any excuse to wear gear out and about is a good one, hope you all felt a little more critter than usual last night! 🌑 💫

Thinking about how music connects with my nonhumanity today.

This is one of the first songs that became heavily tethered to my animal feelings. I used to listen to it on repeat when I was young, imagining myself as a wolf on a foggy peninsula. The mist resting on my fur. My paws on the wet sand and dirt.

I wish I could go back and tell my little self that there was just as much weight to my feelings as I thought there was, that I wasn't just childish and imaginative. That it mattered when I felt that pull in my heart when I listened to that specific song, watched that specific movie, had that specific thought. I would tell myself that it's okay to hold on to that feeling and not push it down as much as possible.

Media and art are such incredible tools for realizing the self. I wouldn't know who I am without seeing artwork that truly made me feel seen like this song did when I was little.

ACK. Been wanting more and more to have a pack of my own, it's so hard for me to find other animals irl because of my health, I also can't drive and even if I could I don't have a car lol. I'm really wishing to have those close bonds with other creatures and canines. Feels like I'm the only coyote in the whole world sometimes.

New tail! RUFF RUFF!

I try to separate my impressions and expression of my own identity from larger cultural/community trends and behaviors, because I don’t want to fall into the thinking that “certain things will make me more of a dog”. But there are times when I feel distant from being a dog, due to the way I commonly see “dog” as an identity being framed within alterhuman spaces. I don’t feel any strong association with the friendly and silly behaviors I see expressed, I enjoy being pet at times but generally I shy away from human touch, and I certainly don’t feel like any sort of “dog boy” or the like, lol. It sucks, I don’t want to be contrarian. I think the “dog boy” archetype can be fun and cool for other people, but trying to see myself in that way makes me feel disgusted. It feels so shallow. I am confident in my expression of being a dog, but a part of me wants to reject my dogness altogether because I so intensely do not want to be perceived in a way that is not faithful to what I am. What do you do when you have no control over how others see the fundamental cores of your existence? I can’t say exactly what kind of dog I am, but I know I am a dog who is driven by instinct. I am not a dog that exists for close connection, I am not a dog that exists to be cute and cuddly and close and fashionable, I am not a dog that exists strictly for someone else, or for visual enjoyment. I am not a source of entertainment, I just am.

More and more I’ve been moving away from identifying so heavily as a dog. Not in the sense that I no longer am one, because that’s not the case. But I think when I started coming into my nonhuman identity, I felt primarily like a dog just due to where I was in life and because it was the first nonhuman aspect of myself that I really came to understand. At the time, I almost entirely conflated my coyote and wolf experiences, and embarrassingly I was reluctant to delve into my wolf-ness due to how “common” being a wolf is, and in turn I screwed myself over and didn’t delve into being a coyote. I eventually got over myself and digested those feelings, and I’m fully comfortable now with the fact that I am a wolf and a coyote. With time I’ve settled into my coyote identity so much to the point that my dog identity has mellowed out a bit. It mostly manifests itself in other areas now, and doesn’t come up as frequently or as intensely. It’s like a background hum, I feel sad about it sometimes. Ultimately I am so much more in tune with myself when I feel coyote, and I know that being a dog hasn’t left me. It’s okay that it’s a hum.

Making some linoprint buttons :0)

I see a lot of therians/alterhumans/etc share feelings of disconnect from this highly visible form of commodified subculture, the stuff with a tinge of consumerism. I completely empathize with them, but I also see the same beings who are taken by this idea that we would be communally better off if the community was more like “how it used to be”. I believe the answer doesn’t lie in preservation, or getting back to community roots. Expression will always find a way, and individualized expression will never be encouraged by the shunning of “new” and the emphasis on“old”.

I believe the answer lies more in channeling these feelings towards accepting and nourishing an evolving community. It does wonders when you have a willingness to ask questions, when you make a point to uplift other community members art, writing, and expression that speaks to you. Comment on the work that you like to see! Message someone you think is cool and see if they want to chat! ask that being with an identity you don’t understand if they can help you learn more about it! Gently steer the newly awakened towards information and different perspectives!

Newcomers need to be shown that there is warmth in the areas of this community that they aren’t yet well acquainted with, that way they can more comfortably participate in the community as a whole; and more experienced beings should be encouraging exploration and uplifting each other. When you invite other viewpoints into the communal conversation, everyone is better for it!🌈

Some recent thoughts about nonhumanity and my relationship to the community + my personal relationship with it that I cleaned up, my writing style is a bit disjointed, I would like to share more of my writing, if anyone would be interested in seeing that :)

I want to see more portrayals of raw nonhumanity.

I want us to talk about ALL aspects of nonhumanity. we can talk about wanting to play fight, to chase prey, to long for missing extremities, but we should also be talking about wanting to roll in filth, wanting to mark your territory, urges to eat your young, and everything else that's "gross" even if it’s uncomfortable. Nonhumanity is weird and gross, it makes you want to do things that humans don't do. We don't exist to be palatable images of "human who identifies as an animal (but only in the cute ways).”

There is a unintentionally upheld standard that you have to make an image out of your identity, it HAS to be pretty and digestible for other people, your nonhumanity MUST to be organized and palatable. it can be "edgy" but it can't be too weird otherwise you're too weird. Why bind your existence to an idea of normalcy? Why stifle yourself in order to conform to the standards of a world that will never accept you? Why strive to be accepted by those that will never truly listen to you?

You are more than aesthetic photos and gear and silly posts!!! You are full of depth, you are a grotesque experience and you are made of blood and bones and guts and thoughts and instincts, and all of that should be treated with as much weight as it can be! You are allowed to be “Off.”

Interrogate your own discomfort around your identity, let yourself be okay with the things that are uncomfortable!!! You should relish in your own nonhumanity, you should wholeheartedly project the nasty and weird and angry parts of existence as an animal, they are just as real and as tangible and beautiful as your collars or your masks or your tails or anything else you hold dear. yeesh!

Here’s a showcase of (most of) my more traditional style gear!🌲🩶

Does anyone have a link to resources regarding the known origins of nonhuman/therian identities, like is there a compiled list somewhere of different root causes for therian identities?

I know of the general categories of spiritual and psychological origins but I’d love to see something that outlines specifics within each category; like past lives, walk-in spirits, neurodiversity, trauma, imprinting, etc. if that already exists somewhere!

Thanks!

This piece is meant to show how I feel/see myself most of the time. Though I do have shifts where I feel exclusively like one of my types (mental, phantom, envisage, what have you) often in my day to day I feel like an amalgam of a few or all of them smooshed together, with the percentages of each type fluctuating around. This piece captures the feeling of when I am a mesh of coyote, karst shepherd, and werewolf!

Happy therianthropy day!

I’m spending tonight watching the fog roll through the trees, wishing I could go out and prowl the cold dark streets for prey, feeling wholeheartedly animal. I hope you’re spending your night embracing your animality too