foxdraakkin

[foxdraakkin]

are YOU a dragon who loves to read (but tired of stories centered around humans killing or taming dragons)? ME TOO! Look what i found!

its a goodreads list of dragon POV stories! happy reading!

[foxdraakkin]

Vegetarian eelkin meals? (No eggplant or raw tomatoes please)

I'll do my best!

Easy Zucchini Mushroom Skillet

Red Lentil Chili

Baked Feta Pasta

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Taco Cups

Pesto Spaghetti Squash

Grilled Halloumi with Herbed Berry Salsa

I apologize if I'm off but I hope you enjoy!

[foxdraakkin]

The Phytanthrope Community Survey is collecting data on phytanthropes’ experiences and understandings of themselves and their community. The survey asks questions about participants’ plant-related kintypes, how they personally think of the definition of the word phytanthrope, and about emotions such as dysphoria. This survey takes about 10 minutes, depending on how much you put in write-in questions. This survey is open to anyone identifies with the label “phytanthrope” or other synonyms with that word. Your body MUST be age 18 or older to participate in this survey. One response per physical body, please.

>>> SURVEY LINK <<<

This survey will close August 1st, 2025. We will collect data from the survey, which we will publish online afterwards and use for research purposes. Any identifying information that participants submit will be made anonymous or removed entirely. The data collected in this survey will be used for research purposes and may be presented as part of a panel for an online convention (Othercon 2025). This survey is part of a series of surveys by House of Chimeras (@liongoatsnake), Orion Scribner (@frameacloud), and Page Shepard (@who-is-page). If you’re interested in this project, please join our mailing list to get notifications of updates, additional surveys, and other events!

[foxdraakkin]

I am not sure we disagree, since I agree that it would not be reasonable to expect everyone to tag, but I do think its reasonable to ask so that people who Can will be aware that it would be helpful and they can choose to do that if they want to. If you mean its unreasonable to ask at all, then we do disagree.

And yeah ive seen that, it really bothers me when people cross tag everything like that, (like, if its about otherkin it shouldnt be cross tagged otherhearted if otherhearted isnt mentioned, it makes it impossible to find otherheart stuff). I also know its not possible to stop people from doing that for reach, but i think its reasonable to ask people to stop and explain ways its harmful, (like people shouldnt be tagging nonphysical nonhuman as physical, esp bc physical community is smaller and that will make it harder to find proper posts.) Then people who didnt realize it was harmful may stop, even if some people still wont care. I think theres a difference in *asking* people to do something and *expecting* them to do it.

I heard from someone they got harsh pushback from making a request that made them want to leave the community. From what was said, it sounded like they were being harassed, but I admit I did not see everything that was said myself, and I cant check because the post was deleted. From my understanding, people were mad at them for even asking, which I think was unfair. But again, Its totally possible I misunderstood the situation, because I only saw how the person reacted, not what everyone said to them.

And I understand why you are distrustful of that. This person seemed very respectful of physical nonhumans so I wouldnt think they would misrepresent things, but I have seen what was clearly a vent not even talking to the person taken as harassment from the physical nonhuman community before, which is actually how I first found the physical nonhuman community and unfollowed some alterhuman bloggers and followed some physical nonhumans instead bc I saw they were being misrepresented and didnt appreciate that.

And I want to be clear that I am not speaking for the person whoes post I saw, I dont know them and didnt want to speak on them specifically too much it just became relevant to explaining why I responded the way that I did.

feel like some folks resistant to simple fact that … yes , lack of boundary between " realities " can massively trigger and destabilise some folks , but so can enforcement of those boundaries for others .

this is not case of folks who simply want to la-di-da pretend everything is magical and fantastical , who need for someone to say " go play that game in another room " .

this is case of folks who can not handle any attempts to enforce what " should " talk about , think , or experience - and folks who might not be able to tell where these lines start and end . for any of these folks , even requests that seem simple like " please tag " … not actually simple at all , as require one to step back and analyse every word , every thought , even whole identity . and that is just . not . feasible .

this kind of thing is just as much capable of destabilise mental state and shatter world , not " less severe " or " lesser of two evils " - just as bad , to different target of folks .

zones where folks uphold boundaries , and zones where folks discard , must both exist for everyone to choose from - and have personal responsibility to avoid other zone , rather than try to convince those folks to join this zone .

[foxdraakkin]

For the final question, imo, it would be fair to ask, as long as you werent mean or acting like absolutely everyone had to do it. From what I saw, there was a person politely requesting people tag just physical nonhumanity, and got pushback so bad they are considering leaving alterhuman community all together.

That is why I got the impression it wasnt already being tagged largely, or being heavily cross tagged, since this person also stated they blocked many accounts and were trying to avoid it on their own but were unable to, so was trying to politely request community help, which I find to be reasonable.

If its already largely tagged or not crosstagged, I am not really sure why that person was having such a problem being able to avoid it on their own. But i absolutely agree no one should be trying to tell you to have to evaluate what might be triggering to others and use a tag for that, especially not saying you HAVE to.

I am just coming from a place where I saw someone make a reasonable request get harassed out of the community, a request that I found reasonable because they specifically said what the triggering content would be and did not ask for invalidating type tags, but catagorizational ones that might be used anyways, and werent sayinf everyone had to do it but just asking people who could if they would to make it easier to combine with blocking to currate their own space, and wanted to defend that request, since it was recent and a lot of posts on this topic seem like theh may be about that event.

feel like some folks resistant to simple fact that … yes , lack of boundary between " realities " can massively trigger and destabilise some folks , but so can enforcement of those boundaries for others .

this is not case of folks who simply want to la-di-da pretend everything is magical and fantastical , who need for someone to say " go play that game in another room " .

this is case of folks who can not handle any attempts to enforce what " should " talk about , think , or experience - and folks who might not be able to tell where these lines start and end . for any of these folks , even requests that seem simple like " please tag " … not actually simple at all , as require one to step back and analyse every word , every thought , even whole identity . and that is just . not . feasible .

this kind of thing is just as much capable of destabilise mental state and shatter world , not " less severe " or " lesser of two evils " - just as bad , to different target of folks .

zones where folks uphold boundaries , and zones where folks discard , must both exist for everyone to choose from - and have personal responsibility to avoid other zone , rather than try to convince those folks to join this zone .

[foxdraakkin]

my only piece on the recent nonhuman discourse is i think that truly stuff like tagging and censoring certain things only really tenable in small groups like a discord server of friends. while i do think things should generally be properly tagged online, conflicting needs can make this an incredibly difficult thing. what causes one person distress is liberatory for another, and sometimes there are indeed cases where that liberation is going to cause distress for others who see it.

I hate loud abrupt vocal noises, can't stand it, ruins my day. A lot of other autistic people make loud abrupt vocal noises and either can't help it, or need to in order to self-regulate. i cant really do anything in that situation but wear headphones or take myself out of situations where im around them. it would be more reasonable for me to ask for something more if we were, for whatever reason, required to be around each other. or if the people in proximity to me refused to ever be around me without that person. but that is just not the case in public spaces like the internet

I do completely understand there being a need for spaces that aren't going to have stuff like that out of nowhere, but on the public net, in shared communities, theres unfortunately not a lot to do about it. i think that both people triggered by physical experiences and people who have physical experiences should be welcome, but that is going to be far harder to come to consensus about as a community when it comes to the comfort of both parties than its going to be in a much smaller group

[foxdraakkin]

" The Amur leopard sees seven times better than humans at night, turning darkness into daylight with its amber eyes 👀🐆🐾"

// © Sondre Eriksen Hensema

[foxdraakkin]

Idk if im missing a discourse not in my zone, but from what I have seen there has been people asking just for people to tag physical nonhumanity in general, which I feel like can be done without asking you to analyize if its real or not, especially if it has its own tag? And if that cant be done, just to not tag with general alterhuman tags so that way its possible for people who are trying to browse that tag who cant see mentions of physical nonhumanity.

If you are talking about someone insisting you tag with unreality specifically or something like that, than I apologize.

feel like some folks resistant to simple fact that … yes , lack of boundary between " realities " can massively trigger and destabilise some folks , but so can enforcement of those boundaries for others .

this is not case of folks who simply want to la-di-da pretend everything is magical and fantastical , who need for someone to say " go play that game in another room " .

this is case of folks who can not handle any attempts to enforce what " should " talk about , think , or experience - and folks who might not be able to tell where these lines start and end . for any of these folks , even requests that seem simple like " please tag " … not actually simple at all , as require one to step back and analyse every word , every thought , even whole identity . and that is just . not . feasible .

this kind of thing is just as much capable of destabilise mental state and shatter world , not " less severe " or " lesser of two evils " - just as bad , to different target of folks .

zones where folks uphold boundaries , and zones where folks discard , must both exist for everyone to choose from - and have personal responsibility to avoid other zone , rather than try to convince those folks to join this zone .

[foxdraakkin]

Keep seeing ppl say the community doesn't exist anymore bc were in one of the many cycle of discourses we constantly have and it's kind of funny to me. Like no you don't get it this is the community. We've always been horrible little pedants with a hard on for making up rules about being speciesweird as a community. This is why you make up a friend group to complain about people with.

[foxdraakkin]

Leopard Seal

(source)

[foxdraakkin]

by Ivo Stokman

[foxdraakkin]

What I've Been Saying!

I know there was discourse a while back about p-shifters and "why don't they call themselves delusional" and "is the idea of p-shifting itself harmful" and the like. A new paper came out by Dr. Jan Dirk Blom (a clinical lycanthropy expert, he's talked about otherkin before) about clinical therianthropy and a comparison to non-clinical therianthropic and otherkin groups. What he's saying seems fairly relevant to the current discourse:

"Misdiagnosis of clinical therianthropy can also be made in terms of overpathologizing certain individuals who report strong identification with animals. In order to avoid this possibility, certain terms and group memberships will be discussed. However, in reviewing the professional and online literatures, there seems to be an unavoidable degree of fuzziness or overlap in current definitions (Plante et al., 2016) and, at least at present, a definitive definitional guide seems lacking."

"Another relevant group, already alluded to, is called therians. Therians overlap with furries to a degree, but the identification of these people with animals (or rather as animals) seems to be far stronger. This could range from a strong perceived connection to their fursona to a firmly held conviction that they are less than 100 % human or would even prefer not to be human (Grivell, 2014). Reviewing the literature, people may identify themselves as therians on psychological, behavioral, spiritual, metaphorical, or existential grounds (Scribner, 2012)."

"We would argue that misdiagnoses can be avoided by focusing on i) the nature of the animal identification, ii) the presence or absence of a belief in actual transformation, iii) one’s overall level of reality-testing, and iv) the presence of clinically significant distress and impairment."

"The notion of zoomorphism has such a long and impressive track record in the history of humankind that it is probably safe to say that it has always been around. It has been part and parcel of many cultures, and individuals may have felt attracted to the belief that human-to-animal transformations are possible under the influence of psychological, social, religious, philosophical, chemical, and cultural influences."

"That the number of published cases of clinical therianthropy is so modest is probably due to underdiagnosis, but it may also indicate that zoomorphism in its numerous different forms is a harmless trait that only leads to excesses in relatively rare cases where people feel misunderstood, become socially isolated, and start showing grossly erratic behavior."

"First, and consistent with prior reports, clinical therianthropy rarely occurs on its own, but far more frequently in the context of other serious psychiatric or somatic conditions and occasionally intoxications. It may therefore be a useful additional diagnosis or diagnostic qualifier with no assumption of it becoming a ‘standalone’ diagnosis. Second, we advise against applying this additional diagnosis or qualifier to nonclinical cases (i.e., to situations where people fulfill one or more criteria of zoomorphism in the absence of clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning). We thus hope to prevent a spurious epidemic of nonclinical or ‘minor’ cases of therianthropy, as well as to protect people who enjoy their perceived non-human animal characteristics - or perhaps simply tolerate them - from seeing their ideas and sensations being pathologized."

(bolding mine)

He also went into some interesting questions regarding clinical therianthropy (like if a person claims to turn into a mythical creature, are they still a clinical therianthrope? Probably not) as well as the -anthrope names for some common and uncommon animal transformations.

[foxdraakkin]

Sometimes I Think about creating a discord community for alt alterhumans. alt^2.

But more seriously it WOULD be kind of cool to have a community to share alt looks since a lot of goth n co fashion is pretty good for emphasis on nonhuman or otherwise "strange" characteristics (thinking about like, also steampunk n cyber for folk who are from another time). I'm not sure if this would be a thing people would be interested in?

would have the upside of making me discover some more cool music too. I'm sure there's alt music i don't know with alterhuman vibes.

making this a poll to test the waters but feel free to reblog so i can like, directly send you the link if we've got a few peeps. It would most likely be 16+ though for the obvious problem of fashion discussion often involving photography and general personal preference.

[foxdraakkin]

Mildly annoyed at the trend of people... Forgetting that many of the strong experiences one can feel about alterhumanity are historically very very common in otherkin and therianthrope? This is not... Beef toward anyone, in fact this popped up bc I checked in on a non anglophone alt-h server, but god. Like speed round. As a note this is gonna be more therian linguo heavy just bc I'm very tired, a therianthrope, and mostly was in therian spaces so it's what I default to but a lot of those are applicable to otherkin n fictionkin.

"can phantom shifts feel like physically shapeshifting"

-> yeah this was an experience talked about not uncommonly on forums. A lot of therianthropes expressed the feeling of "a pelt under your skin begging to breach out" or feeling limbs push out against their skin as the phantom shift took place. Sure a lot of people also feel very mild phantom shifts. Both exist. But this experience is in fact a phantom shift experience. We called ourselves "weres" for a reason. Seems more common in people who distinctly see themselves as werecreatures, but this is not abnormal for a phantom shift, although preferably you should do a doctor check if you feel pain (also an experience ppl talked about, but it's not usually thought of as "normal" just bc. Well that's kinda bad and may hide an injury or whatever so it's better to check mundane reasons first. But painful shifts seem to exist you should just be very very certain nothing else could be causing it).

"I can't turn off being an animal / I can't stop my instincts at inconvenient times / I don't feel suited for human society"

-> this one always surprises me when it's presented as bizarre for otherkin/therians. That was like... A baseline therian experience. Yeah no a lot of us can't either. Usually the difference is that this feeling is at an all time high when in situations where you are constantly pressured to "human" correctly, socialize and have no breaks to wild it out, which corresponds a lot to The Entire Duration Of School and is therefore a more common complaint amongst teenagers than adults. It gets a bit easier as an adult sometimes if you're lucky to have opportunities that let you manage your life around instincts and such, although sometimes, well, you gotta play by societies rules to survive n it stays hard. Also a commonly reported experience. You do learn! But some people are better at hiding instincts than other, some instincts are easier to hide than other, etc.

"I have shifts I cannot control under very intense emotions"

-> "Berserker shift" is a controversial term due to a variety of reasons that span the usual "that's too weird, don't talk about that", the fact you're still responsible for what you do while shifty, or just bc it sounds kinda... Edgy, from a first glance, but it IS a term from our history and a lot of people do report the experience of going fully animalistic if freaked out enough. Sometimes alongside extremely strong phantom shifts as described in the first point! I've heard of people who had complete verbal shutdown and could neither speak nor understand speech, could not walk on two legs, reacted with growling spitting and biting, just the whole thing. I think this experience is a bit harder to find mostly because it's... Very vulnerable, usually. It tends to require less than pleasant conditions, and tends to be very vilified, so not talked about much, but very much something that is recorded.

Transhumanism, species transition and body mods overall

-> I'm not gonna talk much about this one bc I've said a lot in other posts, but there's a reason trans species and therianthropy are super intertwined and it's... Because a lot of therianthropes did historically attempt to transition or at least modify their body and surroundings to their best capacities. The idea that therianthropes, as a rule, mostly do not attempt to modify their bodies seems to me very incorrect.

"I feel a strong, almost supernatural drive toward nature / I feel in my bones I am nonhuman / I believed I could physically shift during most of my life under the right conditions"

-> This one is going to be a bit hard for me. As a result of having psychosis, I have kind of a mental block over thinking too much about it in regards to myself. It's also I think A Major way ppl seem to be confirming physical nonhumanity, so like, you do you, I'm not Telling you anything about yourself. However I do want to note that these feelings aren't particularly rare amongst nonhumans overall. A reason why so many therianthropes got in toxic groups that promised being able to go back to one's true form was... Because a lot of us are deeply convinced in some way or another that if things align juuuuust right maybe just maybe we'll have our bodies again. It's not hard to. Understand why an entire community defined by being in the wrong body would have this trait. A lot of us felt a strong drive toward nature, a feeling of being displaced amongst humans, a lot of us attempted to physically shift.

"I wish I could have my species's offsprings / I feel dysphoria over my sexual functions / I have sexual drives that align with being weird fetishes in a human society"

-> this one is more getting erased due to puritanism I think but yeah no for a lot of nonhumans it. Does not stop magically under the belt. And it's not a problem unless any theriform animal is involved. Yes even if it's kinda nasty to think about. I will however note for the first point "no theriform animal is involved" kinda still goes, please do not adopt animals, especially exotic animals, under the impression that you can parent them as a theriform animal could? It CAN be possible to raise a theriform animal in a way that would satisfy parental instincts if you're trained for it, but we're not special. We got raised by humans, we don't magically understand our species better than people trained for it. Very imprinted animals commonly make poor parents.

"I remember my past life / I communicate with my animal self spiritually / other spiritual experiences"

-> this one is such a surprise to me to see so uncommon now. Spirituality used to be a cornerstone of otherkin and therian spaces and it's kinda wild to me to see it's so rare now. So yeah no that's very much a thing. I don't think I've seen someone soul search for their "true name" in ages, when that was everywhere on old spirituality inclined forums. I can't speak much on this bc I am not a spiritual therianthrope + point about psychosis made before but I've seen parallel lives, I've seen past lives, I've seen future lives, I've seen misplaced souls, I've seen having a chat with your theriotype as a representation of your soul... Awakening seemed to have a meaning of the... Spiritual event of your soul kinda ripping to reveal your inner self for a while, a singular event in which you start remembering. Was very common on an old french forum over here. Not sure if that was as common in English ones. A lot of people's nonhumanity was not as based on shifts and instincts as on uncovering that hidden self through spiritual means, memories, and such.

Weird Shit Happens Around Me ("I can't digest things a human should digest in accordance to my species, ppl have noted my nonhuman traits as if they could see my invisible limbs, animals react weird to me, etc")

-> noooooted in the past but I think these have always been subject to doubt to be fair. Like you can find records of stuff like that quite easily, but also its very hard to prove in any way, shape or form. So that's a reason it's not in the basics of nonhumanity. But yeah historically a lot of otherkin/therianthropes have claimed Weird Shit Happens. Not rly my case so can't speak on it.

And I think I've mentioned what I had in my brain but this is just to remind ppl like... The therianthrope who wears a mask for fun and is only mildly inconvenienced by their animality is not really a representation of the community historically. Weve always been pretty fucking intense and pretty fucking weird. Chances are, if you are experiencing a very weird thing, it's not particularly a disqualifier of therianthropy or otherkin historically. Not that people might not give you shit about it! Pretty much all the points here, while not uncommon reported experiences, ARE in fact also things I've seen ppl be antagonistic about in the community. Which to be clear is stupid. But yeah it doesn't mean you're wrong, it means they don't realize the extent of our experiences.

[foxdraakkin]

Its National Coyote Day! I look to them as my guiding animal, a true spirit of resilience, resistance, and growth. Every day I am grateful to embody and honor them.

Need some Coyote Courage? Both availiable as medium and large prints here.

[foxdraakkin]

My transspecies, non-alterhuman systemmate has asked me to post a reminder that for some transspecies folks, "[physically] transitioning" is not necessarily an applicable framework to approach the term in.

In her case, she uses it because she is literally a dragon arguably trapped in a non-dragon body. She's dragon 100% of the time, but she's only even partially or theoretically human when she chooses to front-- an optional secondary species experience, not an integral one. She is, as far as she is concerned, a dragon and has always been a dragon. She's a dragon first and foremost. There is nothing for her to permanently transition from. She also finds it degrading to imply that the legitimacy of her draconity hinges entirely on how (and if) she is perceived by strangers, and her willingness to be scrutinized in the first place. This is, in her own words, a rental home-- it's not her. Her legitimacy as a transspecies dragon doesn't hinge on raking the leaves off the driveway or painting her walls exterior walls beige. As she says, the alterhuman community might occasionally act like an overbearing HOA, but it doesn't actually have the power of one.

The term also exists outside of the alterhuman community, and it is not the alterhuman community's vocabulary to define or limit. Alterhumans, at least in her personal experience, have been at the forefront of telling her not to use the term (and that no-one should ever use it, in her spats back on Kinmunity and Facebook and etc. in the 2010's). In her mind, this is just another iteration in a long timeline of alterhumans trying to be the sole arbiter of a term that doesn't belong to them, just to tell her that she can't use it.

And on the flip-side, as an alterhuman myself, I also want to point out that per the 2021 Nonhumanity and Body Modification/Decoration survey (500+ participants), almost 42% of participants had body mods. 1/3rd of nonhuman folks with body mods specified that they had mods because of their nonhumanity. Of the participants who did NOT have body mods, half of them said that they planned to in the future.... and of those individuals, a whooping 75% said they wanted future body mods for reasons related to their nonhumanity! So a majority of people planning on future body mods in our communities planned on getting them for nonhuman reasons.

This is all to say that non-transspecies nonhuman alterhumans can and do engage in physical or outward transitioning without using the term transspecies, in the same way transspecies individuals may or may not actively physically transition or externally transition in a public, notable way. It's important to recognize both ends of the spectrum, not just because it's ahistorical to argue they otherwise don't exist, but also because the moment you require someone to be physically, publicly, noticably transspecies is the moment that you put a monetary and social barrier in the way of the term.

Not all people can afford body modifications or decorations. Not all people are in spaces where they are safe enough to be publicly transspecies. Especially right now in history, where the term "transspecies" and transspecies identities are being mentioned in legal legislation. We cannot realistically have obstacles in our communities that rely on people putting themselves in unsafe situations in order to count and be included, and it's important that we're aware of the potential overstep into that territory with what we say. Sometimes in Internet arguments it's easy to put blinders on-- but we need to keep the real-world implications of the things we say or do online in our minds in these discussions, too.

[foxdraakkin]

This might be a hot take, but animal packers are not bad. Being trans-species is not bad. You may not understand it, but who are you to tell someone how they can and can't identify?

Do not correlate trans-species creatures and animal packer users with zoophiles. There is a BIG difference.