Just your friendly neighborhood bison

also, we really think other people need to think about this a bit more deeply than they probably are

So.

Don't you think it's a little weird that people have this sort of purity test for the definition of "therianthropy" where they try to restrict it to extant living animals?

As if maybe it has to be based on some kind of ancestral or genetic memory. Or, if it's spiritual, then it has to be spirits of things that are living, or at least, have once lived.

Because, wolves? They aren't anywhere on the human evolutionary tree. You cannot go back far enough into prehistory, into the ancestry of humans, and find wolves.

And this goes for absolutely every extant lifeform today, including primates. We're all descendant from a common ancestor, but we are not ancestors of each other.

So, that means, whatever's going on with therianthropy, it's not genetic. At least, not in the sense that we have some kind of biologically based memories, or mix up of instincts like that.

Now, humans are neurodiverse and extremely complex. And, really, so is a lot of other life. Life is a complex system that shows many, many countless instances of chaotic fibrillation and development.

It's not inconceivable, as an example of one possible explanation, that sometimes someone is born and develops in such a way that their own personal drives, instincts, and sense of identity better match another animal, just by chance. By an act of chaos (in the chaos theory sense of the word).

So, if you're going to base your understanding of therianthropy off of anything scientific, you have to recognize this. Otherwise, there's nothing scientific about your model of therianthropy.

And just what is it, exactly, that makes that more possible than someone also growing up to be a dragon? Nothing.

Of course, there are also spiritual explanations for this.

But there are so many different spiritualities out there, who is to say that one model is more accurate and true than all the others?

And, the line between a mythical creature and a spirit is a really super blurry one, that changes depending on your own religion.

So, when someone says that they're a dragon therian, the only counter argument that can really be made is something along the lines of "that's not what the word was supposed to mean when it was coined."

And that's a bullshit argument, because not only does language evolve, it should evolve when it needs to. And this is a case of it needing to. (Assuming this is a case of it evolving in the first place, because we don't trust claims that therianthropy was meant to only include extant animals when it was coined by people who identified as werecreatures, a mythical type of being [and a totally legit thing we're not criticizing], and the past is also so easily rewritten.) Whatever the history of the word, there are mythical and fictional people and beings today that need the word "therian" to describe themselves, and in this era of discrimination and crushing oppression of so, so many people, it's fucking awful to try to take that away from them.

Anyway, so, dragons.

Dragons are neat because we were not invented by just some guy.

We're a catch-all umbrella category of a myriad of both mythical and extant living organisms. (Komodo dragons, bearded dragons, and leafy sea dragons are dragons.) Some of us are fictional, some of us are mythical, some of us are extant species of animal, and some of us are plants.

There is no one myth that you can point to and say, "that's where all dragons came from". And there is no singular characteristic that a dragon must have in order to be a dragon. Not flight. Not even breathing fire. Not even scales.

And we're ancient. We grew up with humanity and humanity grew up with us. We are embedded in their psyches and cultures as far back as the earliest pieces of art that have been dug up (or damn near it), even if the word "dragon" isn't nearly that old. The seeds of our memetic identities were there in creatures with horns and wings and long tails and monstrous moods carved in stone and bone and horn, all along.

(scientifically speaking, we probably don't predate dogs, but it is possible. there's no way of proving it one way or the other)

It should be absolutely no surprise that a child of humans wakes up periodically and goes, "Oh, I'm a dragon, actually."

It has historic precedence, after all. Like, even royalty does it occasionally (though, that might be a slightly different thing).

Daemonism is a practice. The concept of it can be used by anyone: alterhuman or not, plural or not. It can be pure playfulness. It can be imaginary, and that's okay! That's a beautiful experience in its own respect!

There's no universal daemian experience because we accept and embrace that our minds, and our experiences, are ours alone.

The community isn't built on a shared experience – just a shared idea which we all create unique versions of.

Some people stick closer to the basic idea we started with. Some just take what they like from it and throw out the rest. Some only take vague inspiration from it. Some people adapt it more than others, sometimes due to being neurodivergent, plural, and/or alterhuman.

It's still daemonism because daemonism isn't defined by us all "doing the same thing" or "having the same experience".

Daemonism is, for the most part, defined by a person deciding that they want to call what they are doing or experiencing daemonism.

And a large part of that is often in connection to the community, whether directly or in a peripheral way, by taking inspiration from the practice, making use of the community's writings, and so on.

This is why I think daemonism is often misunderstood in an alterhuman context. Daemonism is not an experience, it's not an identity – it's just an idea we each take and make our own. And that's what it should be. That's the beauty of it!

Anyone could be a daemian if they want to. There's no requirements. A lot of people get started with daemonism purely because it sounds fun! A lot of people start with only their imagination, and many people remain so.

For others, it might become something else in time, or they might discover there was something underlying their imaginings all along. It's no more or less a practice of daemonism, either way.

A lot of alterhuman concepts don't apply to daemonism because of this. Fact is, there's plenty of daemians who are orthohumans too, and plenty of people who specifically see their daemonism as an orthohuman practice.

I see it get included under the alterhuman umbrella a lot, and I feel like it gives the wrong first impression to come at it from that angle by default.

Really, it's more comparable with being a furry. For some people, it is a deep, impactful, life-altering experience, and the people who feel that way are a vital part of the community. But equally, for some it is an exercise in whimsy, playfulness, or creativity – and those people are no less members of the community for it.

We're not united by being plural, or having thoughtforms, or being alterhuman. We're united by being a bunch of people who were inspired by some books (or a film or TV show) to play around with the idea of daemons, and ended up sticking with it for one reason or another.

It’s normal for your connection to your kintype/hearttype to fluctuate

It’s normal to not have memories

It’s normal if the line between relating and identifying as your kintype is blurry

It’s normal to not be spiritual

Introducing a survey on Species-Based Misgendering, hosted by Duranos of The River System.

     Species-Based Misgendering: the assumption of one's gender and/or pronouns based on the expectations of one's species, stemming from biases, when the expected gender does not match the individual's gender.       Gendered Expectation: the expectation set for a species' gender, whether this bias comes from a cultural or folkoric background, establishment in a media, a linguistic framework, etc.

The survey is open both to the identities underneath the alterhuman umbrella, as well as nonhuman/human+ folks within plural conglomerates. While this survey is primarily looking for responses from those who have been misgendered based on their species, those who have not experienced species-based misgendering are welcome to complete the survey as well. Interpretation of what counts as species-based misgendering is open to interpretation by each individual, and there are long-form fillable responses throughout the survey to accommodate this.

AND EVERY ONE WAS COOL W IT AND SAID THATS WHATS IT ABOUT !!

EVEN THE GRAYMUZZLE HUMANS WHO 99% CHANCE WOULD NEVER HEARD OF THE TERM ALTERHUMANITY !!

(cropped out friends for their privacy but this is SQUAD !!!!!)

My parade fit vs 'civilian' fit :3

The full news post can be found here:

skip the title! You can always come back to it

skip the intro! It can often be the hardest part

skip all the body paragraphs

skip the conclusion

Older alterhumans have just as much (if not sometimes more) capacity to be as biased and misinformed as any alterhuman younger than them. Age does not make wisdom, age does not dictate how worthwhile someone is to listen to.

It is worthwhile to approach someone who has more knowledge in a specific field, discipline, or craft than you and ask them for advice on that specific topic, but that's circumstantially based on what someone has actually done, not age. In this same way, age also does not make knowledge.

I mean, I do often get recognized on youtube lol just not for my therianthropy. Happened last night