#folcinteric

[bardkin]

an important thing i've come to realize about my fictionkinity is that my source is my mythology; an embellished or abridged representation of me.

i know there's a post i reblogged ages ago that uses this line of thought (source = legend & fanon = folklore, or something similar), but i can't remember it & wanna put this in my own words.

plus, this is about my personal beef with "canon divergent" as a descriptor for myself, so finding & re-reblogging that post wouldn't satiate the bees in my brain lol

i think it ties into why i adopted folcintera as a term, because i do not see my source as fact. (my source in particular would've turned out very different, if not for the censors on Cartoon Network. all i need to say is "Rubphire wedding," and folks in the know will nod sagely and/or get angry as i still am about how Sugar & their story was treated by CN.)

i thought myself to be canon divergent for a long time, but that just... never totally felt right. it felt more like a label i thought i had to adopt because i'm not just like the Steven in the show/games/comics. i'm just... me; a version of the character that many, many people saw. nothing more & nothing less.

i am my own folklore, taken from my own myth, in the most mundane ways possible.

my source is only rigid because it has to be. that's how documented storytelling works; it is immutable in the final product, be that prose, picture, film, animation, or whathaveyou. new versions of it are made when the original story gets released into the hands of fans, who go on to create different immutable pieces of their own.

myth into folklore, and such and so on. i don't fully know if any of that makes any tangible sense, but like, bare with me-

i'm wholly psychological in my framework, in regards to being Steven. the origin of how it happened doesn't really matter, because i'm still Steven at the end of the day. i have what i label knowledge and memories of things that happened & people i met and love(d) in that story, because the information sits in roughly the same space as my other, physical, memories. sometimes i ache for that story and world, because i've always felt like i was supposed to be somewhere other than physically here. i'm Steven in my brain and in my heart.

so when i first started questioning being fictionkind, almost a full year ago at this point (thanks to @aestherians for encouraging me to dig deeper into this part of myself lol), it felt quietly disingenuous to label myself as "canon divergent."

and that feels like a seemingly small thing that shouldn't matter. but i'm still bothered by it; more than a little. hence why i'm tossing that term over my shoulder and never looking back :3c

viewing myself as just Me and knowing that a lot of things will and won't line up with my source is fine. source is a version of my and other Stevens' stories, told through the limitations it was allotted. for some, those limitations were true for them; others, not so much (to varying degrees).

[who-is-page]

(if any of y'all write stuff about being folcinteric plz plz plz PLZ PLZ PLZ tag me or send me a link because I want to see it, I promise I want to read whatever you write about it SO MUCH it is SO VERY COOL to see people with similar experiences to meeeee)

[irritatedandroid]

Been thinking a lot on my feelings about wolves, and about how Page talks about folcinteric identity. I’m not sure if I am a wolf, personally. I definitely wouldn’t be in the most known therianthropic way. I can acknowledge the fictional and mythological takes on wolves are often highly inaccurate, and yet they still ring special bells in me as do real facts about wolves.

I relate to it like the facade I put up about me vs how I actually feel inside. Chirin’s Bell/Ringing Bell still hits way too closely in that sense, especially related to trauma feelings.

Walking the border lines of things like wolf-hearted. But I mean, in dealing with my hellhound identity and feelings, I seem to be walking a lot of border lines. Copinglink feelings turned into something I cannot let go of, and that may be revealing things more innate.

[bardkin]

being a ridden dragon & not yet knowing what that entails

inspired by @who-is-page's post here! i decided fuck it !! i wanna write (more) about the draconic aspects of myself, timidness be damned.

as a quick preface, i am a psychological 'kin! i hold loose beliefs in multiverse & a form of reincarnation, but i don't know for sure if / don't think those things apply to me specifically.

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i've known i'm a dragon for a while, now. i go somewhat in-depth about it here in this entry about adopting/trying out the term folcintera for myself, but i didn't really touch on one of the newer revelations i had about it:

i'm the dragon in a rider-dragon pair.

as for how i know this, it just feels Correct. (far as i'm aware,) i don't have any past or concurrent life memories, or know who/what my rider is or was. this is a noema that i cannot explain further, as of yet. I Just Know this aspect is fact.

i mentioned [in my linked entry] that my first up close exposure to dragons was the Eragon series, which is what cemented my idea of what "dragon" was to me. ever since that series, i've been aggressively hyperfixated on dragon-rider stories; the kind of hyperfixation that waxes and wanes, but when it hits, it Hits like a Truck.

i don't think i'm from any one specific source, such as How to Train Your Dragon, Dragonriders of Pern, or Eragon. none of those really feel like places i've lived or belonged in. my specific brand of dragonity is wildly different from any dragons you'd see in the listed settings/stories, so i am not any dragon you'll see in those stories — but i also am.

moreso, i feel a connection to the dynamic between rider and dragon; the trappings don't truly matter, in the end. i am the archetypal dragon-with-a-rider, and see myself in almost any dragon-rider setting. i am a Ridden Dragon, and that will mean something different to everyone who interacts with dragon-rider lore — including myself. i am both folcinteric and an archetrope, in this regard.

before i awakened, and thought about dragon-rider stories, i thought i was simply wanting to live in a world where i could share a bond like that & go on adventures... and while that's still true, since i'm an escapist storyteller, there's a key difference between then and now.

i thought i had to relate to and imagine myself as the rider — and that never felt completely right.

now that i'm aware of and better exploring my draconic side, this aspect has come to light. and i have No idea what it could mean for me.

as stated, i don't know who my rider was/is or could be. i don't know what our dynamic was like, if our bond is of magical origin or through mutual trust. though, that might have something to do with me being archetypal, here. my rider could be anyone; our bond origin could be of any type, so long as it serves the purpose of the archetype.

dragon riding means different things to different people. sometimes it's about taming a wild beast, akin to horseback riding. other times it's a magical bond. and other times still, it's about trust and friendship.

i still don't know what my personal mythos is, or if i have one at all. maybe it is just that dynamic, nebulous and without a tether. or maybe it's just not uncovered quite yet.

i don't know how common being a ridden dragon is, be it in fictherian/fictionkin dragon spaces, or more general dragonkind spaces, because i haven't seen it talked about much. possibly because i'm just not looking in the right places, but, *shrug*!

i have no idea if this post will inspire any other dragons with riders (or maybe even dragon riders!) to write about their experiences. but, never know unless i post, so ;]

thanks for reading!

[bardkin]

taking on @who-is-page's Folcintera Week Challenge! do note that entries most likely won't be daily, because i have Various Things wrong with me (such as Work and Chronic Sleepy) <3

🐾 What is your species? How do you experience aspects of your nonhumanity?

I’m a fisher marten, human-gem-hybrid, coyote, animal familiar, artificial mobian hedgehog, and a demon-weapon. I’m also a Storyteller archetrope, though that doesn’t totally apply here (until it does, sometimes).

Generally speaking, I experience various shifts — most commonly in the form of phantom limbs / parts (ears, tail, fur, fangs, gem, etc), envision or "self-image" shifts (tho I hesitate to call them "shifts" since I don't usually internally "see" my human-body-self, when I think about my self-image anyway), and mental / instinctual shifts — and have sort-of-memories, as well as noemata. All of this is physiological & neurologically based (though, my Shadow fictotype was just kind of... dropped into my lap, uninvited, and I've simply been Shadow The Goddamn Hedgehog ever since), with a very "narrative" framework to a lot of it.

When it comes to my animality specifically, I experience it in possibly a very niche way. I do have very “usual” experiences of beastly shifts, instincts, etc, but I’m not just restricted to four legs. I’m kind of like those queer little animals in Beatrix Potter’s books, Little Bear, or RedWall — I’m a creature straight out of a beast fable. Kind of furry adjacent, but also Pretty Much A Furry in a very nonhuman way. It kind of melds into very human activities. Unnoticeable unless I become aware of it, because it’s become almost background-noise levels of normalized to me. I almost always have some phantom animal part, be it ears, a tail, quills, fangs, pawpads, claws. It's more noticeable to not have these shifts.

My animal familiar-ness is still something I have yet to delve deeper into, as this is a concept that requires connection to another; lending one’s self to help someone you’re bonded to. Admittedly, I haven’t had the chance to explore it yet, but I do know that it’s affected by all manner of its depiction and origins. Be that daemons from His Dark Materials, or palismen from the Owl House, each iteration of the “magical animal companion” feels like me. It also bleeds into dragon-rider bonds, and heavily affects how I experience that genre, or stories that have this as a trope or character. Rather than relating to the (usually always human/humanoid) rider, I find myself in the shoes (or, more aptly, the scales) of the ridden dragon.

Being Steven Universe is an experience I’m not sure I can articulate properly in a few sentences, other than... that is who I am. I am Steven in the most mundane, everyday ways possible. Being Steven is also the closest to being internally human that I'm ever going to get, and even that never feels like "human from this earth." I am Steven in the way I have endless optimism, in the way I always want to help and fix others’ problems (even if I can’t, and even if it’s detrimental to my own mental health), and in the way that I have Goddamn Mommy Issues. Again (which is only partially a joke). I may not be Steven-From-The-Show or Steven-From-The-Light-Games, but that's also me. Even some fanfiction iterations are me, which is something of an entirely separate essay in itself.

The demon-weapon thing is... well, saying it (simply) “feels good to identify as something that can turn into a weapon” seems... kind of surface level, but, it’s what I experience. There are days where it feels like I should be able to flex some unseen muscle, something under the surface, and have my arm become a blade, or to be able to morph completely into a scythe or sword. That I should be able to resonate my very soul with the one(s) closest to me, so that they could literally wield me as the weapon I was meant to be. It’s something I know will never be a reality, but that it should.

And... being Shadow the Hedgehog means experiencing a gut wrenchingly regretful nostalgia for a sister I never had & couldn’t save. It means having quill shifts out of nowhere, sometimes over top other phantom shifts, and having something to attribute my memory gaps to (even though I know they’re because of the auDHD, & not caused by this fictotype. Sometimes to get mentally well you have to be a little mentally unwell). It means embracing not knowing who I am, and forging ahead anyway.

[bardkin]

so i've been kind of ignoring/shoving an aspect of myself to the wayside because it's just. it's indescribably frustrating, for some reason. the thing being that i'm (most likely) a (domestic) cat therian.

it feels right to call myself a cat, but, for some reason, i don't want it to.

is it my coyote-ness that i'm getting hung up on?? a kind of "i can't be a canine and a feline at once, they have such opposing Everythings!" thing i think to myself, even though i'm also draconic & a marten (two species wildly different from either lol)

being a cat may have something to do with already being an animal familiar (archetrope)? mostly because the most common type of familiar is a witch's cat (which lends into being folcinteric), but that's not the Whole reason. this isn't a paratype or strictly one of a few "forms" of being a familiar, i know that much.

augh

[bardkin]

been doing a lot of passive reflecting & i think. because of how i experience and analyze my animality, i'm gonna be using fictherian (alongside folcintera) to describe all my animal aspects. or maybe just folcintera, because that covers what i'm about to ramble about pretty much spot on.

my primary framework is narrative, and i experience a lot (if not all) of my animality & nonhumanity with this layer of... "abstraction" is kind of the word i'm looking for. like, all my theriotypes feel as if they come from obscure xenofiction stories. i am these creatures, i experience these instincts/shifts/etc, but my source is rooted in fiction - no matter how "realistic" it may be.

the folcinteric part of it plays a Huge role here, too, because xenofiction often has such specific vibes & expectations (AND it also varies depending on if it's Mythic or Naturalist xenofiction). i am both fantastical and mundane, be my canon from a story like Warrior Cats, or something like Fox & The Hound (both xenofiction works, the former being extremely grounded in reality & the other going off the deep end with fantastical elements).

i have no idea if that made much sense, but i'll eventually get around to writing up a better word-soup on this lol

[bardkin]

while my dracionity turned out different in the end, this was still an important post for me to write!

<:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::{[xxx()o

when I see my draconic self in my mind’s eye, or become more aware of my phantom parts (because they're always present to a degree), there’s a consistent, distinct shape.

o()xxx[{:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::>

- a long-ish mammalian muzzle, full of sharp teeth & fangs. also has a feline- or mustelidae-like nose-pad. (“padded nose”? idk the exact term for these types of critter snoots.) - brown fur of short-to-medium length. - unsure if i have scales or protective plating anywhere? might have some on the lower sections of my legs. - body is pine-marten-y in shape & length. - tail is also quite long. sleek, thick-ish, and is capable of corkscrewing around itself at least once. tapers off into a (albeit large) lion-like “tuft” at the end; like a traditional unicorn’s tail. (may be longer, and i’m just experiencing a length that’s relative to my human body???) - paws with five digits, paw-pads, & claws. unsure if said claws are retractable at all. overall very marten-esk. - ears are always in a “back facing” position, which seems to be their natural/neutral positioning. ears are large, almost fennec-like, and fuzzy inside & out like a donkey’s. - set of small nub-horns, teal in color, positioned like a goat’s or deer’s. - one of the closest placement matches i’ve seen are Trico’s (beast from The Last Guardian), but mine grow the opposite direction (i.e, toward my back).

- i do not have wings, and notably feel like i’d be incapable of (natural/non-magical) flight.

- i believe my species lived in, or at least frequented, a temperate forest environment of sorts. and/or potentially somewhere that feels like a mix of Alaska & California's wilderness? it's a jumble of fuzzy noemata that i'm still sorting through.

all this got me wondering; is there any example of this sort of dragon in wider media? in any known mythos or folklore? thus far, the closest examples i've found in these sources are Chinese & Japanese Dragons, such as the character of Haku from Spirited Away; but these aren't exacts. when i look up images & read about them in mythology texts (historical & fictional alike), i always think to myself "Kind of close, but... not it."

one fictional type i've found that sort of matches me is Imperial dragons, from Flight Rising.

however, many details just don't ring as "me." i lack wings, those prominent whiskers, full scales, or any kind of beard, my horns are much, much shorter, i could go on. bottom line, i'm not an Imperial dragon. so, i'm left with the same feeling: "Close, but nowhere near exact."

the absolute closest body-type/shape i’ve found (outside of drawing something myself) is from various original characters. there's a consistent handful of design tropes that make these characters distinctly this type of "fuzzy noodle dragon" — like a mosh-pit mix of almost "off-brand" depictions of eastern dragons. if you're in character/adoptable design circles, you may know what i'm talking about. you may even own a character like this, or be in the same boat as me.

i did briefly consider the idea i might be OC-kin, but... similarly to historical depictions & Imperial dragons, these designs feel like they’re just that; designs. not part of my identity.

"Close. Nothing more."

even this fursona/character concept i whipped up a few years ago, which has pretty much every visual aspect i described, doesn’t feel like me. that character still feels like just a for-fun-mascot or character; not a self-portrait, idealized or true-to-form.

which brings me to a label i've been ruminating over: Folcinteric (Nonhumanity).

i feel @who-is-page’s label of folcintera might really fit me, especially with the specific type of dragon i’ve described here. problem is, (and this is most likely just the imposter syndrome talking) i'm not even sure i have any mythos to begin with.

well. maybe i do. in a slightly more abstract sense.

as i said, this kind of design is not that uncommon; i'd even dare to say it's popular. popular enough that a lot of people will understand and have a fairly distinct image in their mind when you say “furry noodle dragon.” (i'm extremely curious about the origins of this design trend, and who might've kicked it off, or if this concept is a conclusion that multiple artists came to when making a lung dragon inspired design.)

so, perhaps my larger “mythology” — to potentially stretch the definition a bit — is from a subset of the dragon art & character design communities. something in me says that could count as a "lived mythology" of sorts.

and, i am still a type of dragon, one that varies in imagery/details and person-to-person lore, at the end of the day. one that is also very tied to my own personal understanding of "dragon."

dragons, in the larger scope of folklore, are typically an allegory for the wealthy, or the concept of "evil," or are simply more "neutral" symbols of power, wisdom, strength, and/or magic.

dragons were never something i feared / saw as universally "villainous," or even as strictly symbolic of any of the previously listed symbolism. my first exposure to dragons was within the Eragon/Inheritance Cycle series. due to the dragon and rider bond i saw there, "dragon" was cemented in my brain as a companion; protector, friend, but also animal. a fearsome one, yes, but not cruel or "evil by nature." not greedy, just naturally curious and drawn to "shiny" objects in the way any corvid is. sapient as any human or humanoid folk, but still as much of a beast as any wolf or bear.

publicly, i'll most likely just say "I'm a [species of] dragon," and leave it at that. the details of my identity are for me alone, and thus any further explanations or descriptions will be given voluntarily.

but even the things i keep private, i like to put names to. this is one such thing!

"theriomythic" felt somewhat like a hasty choice, though i don't mean that as a bad thing, at least for me. a bit of "my experiences fit here [within the therian label], but the species and my understanding of it doesn't [fit the definition of "only" earthen/nonfictional animals]... so i'll go with something that's close enough."

i do quite like the terms "draconity" & "dragonkind," since they're both very all-encompassing; but... i'm not sure how to articulate how that also feels like the problem (though i use the term loosely) that my brain has with them. "dragonkind," from my understanding, is more-so a label for the community itself rather than the individual. (it can be for personal use, i.e "I am dragonkind," but i don't know if it's widely used as such.) and "draconity" doesn't... quite ring the way i feel it should. it feels more like a general descriptor to preface my experiences and identity.

i could come up with my own term(s), and who knows, i might end up doing so. but at the same time, i don't want to reinvent where i don't need to. to me, the idea currently feels like calling that particular shade of lavender purple by another name, just because i can.

so maybe my flavor of dragon does fit the definitions for being folcintera. the term is supposed to be pretty much limitless within "lived mythos."

all that to say, i'm going to be trying out folcintera for myself. worst that happens is it doesn't end up fitting lol if that becomes the case, i'll find or make something new~

[bardkin]

re-reading A Short Introduction to Folcinteric Nonhumanity has me seeing So many other connections, now that i've managed to pin down a lot of my nonhumanity.

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i definitely like the labels i've gathered; fictionkind & archetrope being the primary ones that feel incredibly close to my heart. but some feel not Quite right, though they're the closest thing(s) that fit my experiences. they're more like...... prefaces? for lack of a better word?

"otherkind" vs "otherkin" is a good example of being Close But Not Quite. otherkind almost scratches an itch, gets incredibly close, but it doesn't... quite... get there. it's something i can use to start an explanation of what else is going on here.

fictionkind is MUCH closer, but it's somewhat too specific to Just certain aspects. it doesn't apply to all of me, which is fine! i love having a bunch of labels for different facets of myself (my gender & sexuality being standout examples), since there's most likely never going to be a catch-all for my experiences.

but... it is nice to have just a few words that truly fit, rather than a basket of words that only kind of fit when lined up together.

my connection to fiction & myth & fantasy are what really stand out about me. i pretty much live and breathe fiction, in both my career choice and identity. world building and story craft is my "thing," and is something that's touched me in ways i'm not even sure how to fully explain.

as i shape lore, it shapes me.

i don't know how (un)common this kind of thing is, but, my connection to fiction affects every aspect of my nonhumanity.

i see myself in photos of coyotes, yes. but that connection is just as strong, if not stronger sometimes, in stylized deceptions. dragons are an even greater example of this; the more "photo realistic" or "scientifically accurate" a dragon is, the less i feel a connection. (that's not me knocking these kinds of dragons - i love the way dragons are depicted in GoT, for example; they just don't feel like they're an accurate reflection of my identity.)

though, this is not about people being able to better relate to anthropomorphized versions of things or creatures. that much i know.

it is the fact that these depictions are fictional. abstracted, toon-ified, allegorical-ized. unable to exist without the stroke of a thought or pen.

when i imagine things in my mind, i do not think in realism; not always. that takes a lot of effort. i think in animation, in drawings, in stylization. and that Really affects my animality & nonhumanity, as my mental "landscape" seems to be Vastly different from most's. even my phantom limbs are like this, having more stylized/"cartoony" proportions and details.

i'm still going to be trying out folcintera, as the folklore & story roots & blend of animality & humanity are just. the word Hits in some way that feels so right. Page's quote on page 3 is pretty much what drove it home for me, especially as a storyteller.

i am and am not the coyote that wanders city streets, that sings in the prairies, that is the trickster fool and a pest. my personal lore differs wildly and converges in many areas, but i am all of those things when others think "coyote."

i am the steven quartz universe people think of, that is viewed in the cartoons, and i am also not.

i am the lore that shapes me.

[who-is-page]

💚: What’s your favorite thing about your kintype? (The species, creature, etc)

My favorite thing is either the long and storied history that canine psychopomps overall have in myth and legends across the globe that I can always look back on to take joy in, or just the fact that I am an actual living horror motif. We love to see it.

--- Otherkin Ask meme (ignoring the fact that I'm folcinteric and not otherkin, shh)

[bardkin]

not me discovering the term Folcinteric and being like😳

reading @/Who-Is-Page's essay has been kind of a revelation. i'll have to do some heavy self reflection and thinkin', but honestly? i think i vibe with it.

there's a number of reasons that i can't fully articulate just yet, but might make a journal about in the coming days/weeks. many parts of his essay really hit something for me and how i'm viewing my non-humanity.

[who-is-page]

If you see an increase in hatemail (because god forbid this blocklist person who's popped up up do it responsibly) it'd be because of them:

http://radqueer-blocklist.tumblr.com

They have you in their blockist give no explanation as to why (im guessing it's otherkin related ("transspecies" related according to them)

- Mae

Hopefully you see this shortly.

Thanks for the heads up! I'm guessing it's some sort of shit over me calling myself folcinteric while also simultaneously being transgender-- that, or they just shoved me in with a blocklist of a bunch of people they don't like so that they can make me seem bad, even if I'm not actually applicable to the list. I've pissed off a lot of people in my time, so I'm guessing it's the latter.

[who-is-page]

Moving Away from Otherkin & Therian Terminology

I’ve considered myself an otherkin since the early-to-mid 2010′s, but both my understanding of my nonhumanity and the communities’ rhetoric and vocabulary surrounding nonhumanity have shifted by notable degrees in the years since. While the terms otherkin, therian, theriomythic, and even fictionkin can all reasonably be applied to me with some sort of accuracy, I feel like none of the terms available in the otherkin and therian communities encompass my identity in a meaningful and useful way anymore. Truth be told, I have had a harder and harder time defining myself by labels at all, and instead find myself falling back on the simplicity of straightforward phrases such as “I am a canine psychopomp.”

I find myself disconnected from much of the language and the politics found in the communities nowadays: I’m tired of the innercommunity posturing, the purity culture, the bizarre forms of elitism, and how often I’ll see people purposefully misdefine or twist the definition of a word far, far from what it was originally intended for and historically used for (and this counts both for the excessive widening of words and for the gatekeeping of words).

I still love discussions centered around nonhumanity, don’t misunderstand me! I love hearing about other people’s understanding of their identity, their experiences, what their “everyday” looks like in contrast to my “everyday”. Nonhumanity and nonhumans are fascinating and wonderful and I don’t think my opinion on that will ever change. But I feel like finding those kinds of discussions within otherkin and therian communities can sometimes be like finding a needle in a haystack; so many of the platforms that these communities exist on just aren’t built for it, and of those that are you run into issues with moderation, with hierarchical standards of what does and doesn’t constitute as appropriate nonhumanity, with the misdefining of vocabulary, the list goes on and on.

Maybe it’s just a side-effect of my greying muzzle, but I’m more than happy to be off in my own corner at this point, with my own words, descriptions, and experiences, with just the people close to me who I relate to, far away from any sort of odd expectations or unfathomable politics. So with all that said, I’m just not really going to be using otherkin and therian terminology as much from here on out. I’ve developed my own terms, folcintera and folcinteric nonhumanity, in order to better describe my experiences and my nonhumanity, especially as a uniquely mythological animal, and I’ll honestly probably be developing more if needed going forward.

I’m still going to be in nonhuman circles, otherkin and therian included. I’m still going to be a nonhuman creator, continuing to publish comics for Shenani-kins and more literature for my website. I’m still technically classifiable as otherkin and therian as per their definitions. I just don’t really see myself as specifically an otherkin or therian anymore. I’m just nonhuman, a folcintera or folcinteric nonhuman if you really gotta assign more than that to it. And maybe it’s not a major distinction to some, but it’s an important difference to me.

(And before I get asks-- I included the definition of folcintera below the cut. A Short Introduction to Folcinteric Nonhumanity can also be found on my personal website, invisibleotherkin.neocities.org, for further reading because the definition below really doesn’t fully encompass all aspects and complexities of this type of nonhumanity.)

Folcintera /foʊk.ən.tɛɹə/ Noun.               Folk (People as carriers of culture; of or pertaining to the inhabitants of a land, their culture, tradition, or history) + inte (in, inside; based off of inter- between, amid, among, during, within, mutual, reciprocal) + tera (sign, marvel, wonder; divine sign, omen, portent; monster); literally meant to translate to "The folks' monster" or “The monster within folk(lore)”           

The unique experience of an individual who non-physically identifies as an animal from or deeply intertwined with mythos/folklore; a person who experiences a form of involuntary, intrinsic nonhumanity with aspects of both animality and sapience, and which originates from or is personally intrinsically tied to mythology, folklore, or other forms of cultural legend. This nonhumanity is not a separate entity from the individual, nor is it roleplay or another fictitious form of temporary self-identification; it is interwoven with their “self” and impacts  their everyday lived experiences.        

Alt. Folkintera Plural. Folcintera See also: Folcinteric Nonhumanity (Nonhumanity as originating from or primarily being folcintera). Theriomythic (An individual who identifies non-physically as a type of categorically fantastical creature, but whose experiences within their identity are marked by a unique animality; An individual who identifies non-physically as a creature from mythology, folklore, or another form of legend).

[who-is-page]

Thinking about what I'm gonna do for next year's OtherCon on this fine Tuesday morning ...

I really liked my panel this year and would love to do another one, but the amount of work that went into just that simple 45 minute presentation was seriously no joke. I'm also a little amused because it felt like more fights broke out in the chat section of my panel than in any of the other lectures, but I'm hoping that's not reflective of the way I was speaking about my topic and instead is just an inevitable result of talking about something as sensitive and loaded as religion, racism, and societally-ingrained bigotry. (I expected there to be some minor disagreements, but I didn't expect the atheists vs. the non-atheists debates, or the arguments over whether white people are allowed to talk about issues of racism they've noticed, or all the comments on secularism and the American Civil Religion, and...just, woof. There was So Much.)

I don't think I can handle being an artist and a panelist again. I felt like I neglected what I wanted to do with my art channel because I just had no time to divert to it while preparing my lecture. Next year, it's gonna have to be one or the other.

I'm currently playing with the idea of doing a panel on personal mythological narratives and alterhumanity, and/or a panel on the Cartesian views you can find in the therianthrope and otherkin community. Or a panel dissecting the results of the Body Modification and Decoration Survey from this year (which I'm currently working on a formal write-uo for!). Or a panel on terminological shift, and how we've seen certain words change over the years (and certain words not). But that last one is more Chi's wheelhouse than my own.

I think the first two appeal to me the most, especially since I have an in-the-works paper on the Cartesian perspective and my folcinteric identity means I have a huuuuge soft spot for personal mythology. I'm not sure how interesting these topics would be for other alterhumans/nonhumans, though.

There's still plenty of time before I have to decide anything, but I'm for sure mulling stuff over.

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You ever re-read something you wrote and go "how the fuck did I pull that off. What writing juiceTM did i take when making this, and where can I find more?"

that's me re-reading my A Short Introduction to Folcinteric Nonhumanity essay rn lmao

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The Folcintera Week Challenge🖋️

Everyone loves a good writing challenge, and I thought it was about time I drafted up a folcintera-specific one! The aim is to answer one question a day for a week about your folcinteric nonhumanity, in order to work towards sharing parts of your identity that you might not actively talk about, or to reflect on certain aspects of your nonhumanity that you may not have really written about before-- with that said, any alterhumans and nonhumans are allowed to participate and answer these questions if they so please, and there is no real, actual time limit or end date to this challenge. Go wild, you animals.

1.     What is your species? How do you experience aspects of your nonhumanity?

2.     What are some of the biological realities or canonical features of your species which resonate particularly strongly with you? These can be things such as hunting instincts, particular habitats or environments you find yourself drawn to and more comfortable in, species dysphoria around specific parts of the body, and etc.

3.     What are some of the mythological, magical, religious, fictional, or cultural themes and species which exist and affect or are a part of your folcinteric nonhumanity? Have you voluntarily embraced certain aspects of these, or did you merely find yourself resonating with them from the beginning?

4.     How do you incorporate your nonhumanity into your daily life? Alternatively, or in addition to that, how does your nonhumanity manifest itself in your daily life in notable ways?

5.     How and when did you realize the specifics of your species? Was it a long journey, or a short one? Did you know immediately what you were, or was it something that took a while to figure out? Are you still questioning and understanding your species identity?

6.     How and when did you realize you were nonhuman? Was it something you had always known on some level? Something that awakened in you, for whatever reason? Something that just ended up becoming a part of you? Do you have any theories or explanations behind your nonhumanity (or species identity), or is it something you prefer not to try and dissect?

7.     Some view their nonhumanity as a blessing, while others view it as a curse- where do you fall on this spectrum? What are your opinions about your personal nonhumanity? Are you grateful for it? Would you rather not be nonhuman at all? Why do you feel this way?