AWTOK'S unpaid werewolf intern

[Massive TW for Cults, Abuse(Including Digital SA, including COCSA), Delusions + Validation/Encouragement of Delusion, and probably more that I cannot for the life of me think of off the top of my head]

Hello, I'm Phoenix, but you can also call me Silverthorn. I've been in the nonhuman community since 2011-2013, and initially got my start in P-Shifter/Mythical communities, the ones of most note being ArdaErellon, GrowingWings4Life(usually just called Grow Wings.), and other adjacent webs.com forums.

I'll be documenting my experience with the community chronologically to the best of my ability, but do be aware that it may be a bit splotchy, as my memory of it all is a little janky due to the trauma and the fact this occured over 10 years ago now. It is of importance to note: I am neurodivergent, I speak from the perspective of someone who has been dealing with undiagnosed autism since childhood, which in turn, did influence my level of understanding of the world. My memory is also a little messed up due to dissociation from childhood trauma.

2011 - 2012: The Start - My start with P-Shifting began in 6th grade, when I was 11. I had met someone, who I will refer to here as Dragon. Dragon was my closest friend, however this was NOT a good thing. I had begun awakening to my inherent nonhumanity, but you know, when you're young, you'll believe in very fantastical things. Dragon was a P-Shifter, and I thought I was too. This is how our friendship really solidified. What easily could have been innocent schoolyard RP became grounds for abuse, manipulation, etc. Dragon convinced me that everyone hated us, and people would actively run away from me because where I went, she followed. Dragon was notoriously an asshole to others, but she used this to convince me that everyone hated me.

2013-2015: Aka "The Peak". 2013 is when I entered the online P-Shifter scene. Now, I had read websites and guides on p-shifting prior to this, but this is when I actually got INVOLVED so to speak. After reading some of the Maximum Ride books, I began experiencing phantom shifts of wings, which in turn lead to me joining GrowingWings4Life (colloquially known as Grow Wings), a forum on webs.com for Avians and other mythicals. I, obviously, began attempting to grow wings. This is where I met my flock. I've named two of them here before, but for the sake of this post I will be using stand in names. I also got my first scoliosis dx at age 13, during a school evaluation. This will come up again in another section of this post.

Aqua was the first one I met, she was basically a sister to me. She was honestly the first REAL friend I had, to the point where we called eachother sis. It was through her where we met the rest of our flock, albeit most of them would separate except for Red. Red was another one of the flock, unlike the other key members (Julio and Cailen. I WILL namedrop them for the bullshit they did. Julio was 18, and I don't remember Cailen's age but I do believe she was older than me, Aqua, and Red. I think maybe 18 but I'm not Positive.), he was also 13, like Aqua and I.

Julio got kicked from the flock for trying to groom Aqua and I over kik (classic 2013 experience I know), and Cailen went separate ways after a breakup with Red (she did some HORRIFIC things to him, which I will not disclose here other than it being SA) Things with the flock started out good at first, I mean why wouldn't it? Of course, we also learned about Awtok. We genuinely believed in them, and in part, were responsible for bringing knowledge of Awtok to Grow Wings out of sheer FEAR for everyone's saftey. Awtok's chokehold on our flock specifically remained.

Enter G32: Another school friend of mine, and self-professed Keyblade master. Though not an avian and p-shifter like the rest of us, he was part of our flock. I do fully blame myself and take responsibility for getting him involved with the flock + the consequences of doing so. He got involved the summer of 2014, but I had known him prior, and trusted him. G32 was someone we went to for advice and whatnot. In a way, despite Red and I being the leaders of the flock (when we started dating in 2014), I'd consider G32 to be the one pulling everyone's strings.

It was through G32, that Red became convinced he was a monster. Again, wont go into full details but this lead him to spiral into full on delusions. I remember him texting me in a state of extreme distress one night because he had "seen" his "true form" in the mirror. Looking back, this was clearly a hallucination. He ended up having MULTIPLE experiences like this. Now, he had been having some experiences akin to this prior to G32's claims about Red's true nature, but it was only after those that things got as bad as they did, such as full on berseker shifts for what his species was. (According to G32 the species was like an offshoot of the heartless from Kingdom Hearts.)

G32 also, on multiple occasions, forged messages from AWTOK, usually through 3DS swapnote, and then also forged messages from other "keyblade masters" who got involved with the flock via fake phone numbers.

Back to Red, because of the sheer amount of abuse he went through, ended up repeating the cycle of abuse with me. What he did to me was not ok. He had, through Cailen's abuse, become to believe he was possessed by a succubus who was Cailen. This began his manipulation of me, going so far as for this "possession" to lead to basically the Succubus threatening to leave me if I did not engage in sexual text-rp/sexting with Red as a way to prove my love & devotion. It eventually stopped, though i cannot remember what caused it to stop. Again, we both were 14 and severely mentally ill. I DO NOT HOLD THIS AGAINST HIM, AND I FORGIVE HIM FOR THIS. WE BOTH WERE VICTIMS.

Now, Red was VERY remorseful of what had happened, though we never actually talked about it or mentioned it after that, though I wish we did. It pretty much was him just apologizing but not specifying the incident (most because I told him not to), and me not actually letting him confess to what had happened. I wish I would have let him speak, but I was a scared child. Like I said, looking back now, and not out of a place of hurt, I can recognize he and I were both victims of abuse.

Come 2015, shit with G32 really hit the fan. From forging messages from other keyblade wielders turning against the flock, threatening to kill us for being traitors by aligning ourselves with Red, and the like, to then, when we stood up for ourselves, claiming it was all fake and a lie he spun, and then back to threatening us with the keyblade wielders after. It got to a point where it almost became a physical altercation on school grounds the following day. It was after this that things fell apart. The flock stuck together but ultimately separated, with the last I've heard from any of them being in 2016.

2016 & Onward: 2016 I still held onto some P-Shifting beliefs, but had begun to break away from them. It was really only come 2018 that I had fully recognized the nature of my beliefs were steeped in delusion, albeit the occasional relapse into p-shifter thoughts does occur to this day. I'd be lying if I'd said I haven't attempted to p-shift despite knowing and accepting it's impossible.

Now, other things not in this timeline that did happen, but I didn't feel were as interwoven with my flock experience:

ArdaErellon - when GrowWings went down, this kinda became one of the main sites people went to. It's not up anymore but I do remember the admin, Tinnuwen, asking people for their IRL locations, like addresses and whatnot, in order to open portals near them so they could travel to the realm of ArdaErellon.

Razgriz Pack & Other Cyberpacks - I got involved with a cyberpack when I was 13, when I didn't want much to do with them they threatened to send their other werewolves after me lol. I Don't remember if it was Razgriz or a different pack that I was involved in, mostly because I didn't spend much time around them.

Why I'm Making This Post:

I make this post because I've seen a resurgence in the P-Shifter & Mythical communities. Moreso, I've seen this become accepted and welcomed into the alterhuman community, which poses a SIGNIFICANT threat to the saftey and wellbeing of others. I've seen people ACTIVELY encouraging and validating delusions of Clinical Lycanthropes/Zoanthropes, claiming that it is harmless. IT IS NOT, I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE.

My wing delusions were encouraged, and we avians took any criticism of our attempts as threats and people just wanting to be assholes. Because of the repeated validation of my "physical" wing growth, i actively avoided getting treatment for my scoliosis for over 2 years. Like i said earlier in this post, during an exam at school, they felt my spine was curved. However, because I fully believed I was growing wings, I REFUSED to let my family take me to the doctor, refused to let them get x-rays of me, for fear that they'd discover my wings, because I was a terrified CHILD. This lead to my spine becoming so severely curved that I was at risk of my lungs collapsing. I fear to see what would have happened to me had I not eventually gotten surgery in 2015. The point is, the beliefs involved with subcultures such as p-shifters, holotheres, mythicals, etc. is inherently harmful. The denial to accept ones biological humanity, and the laws of physics that come with it, is a saftey risk. When people speak out about their experiences, they get dogpiled by the physical therian community, and victim blamed. When we explain why these things are harmful, we get accused of a whole slew of things, such as trying to make humans like us, or bring ableist by saying that encouraging delusion is harmful.

Me, Red, and Aqua should NOT have had to live out our teen years in fear of AWTOK, in fear of uncontrollable shifts, in fear of hunters, etc. We should have been able to have our formative teen years be normal. My friend Sundew, also known as @aesthetikins , was there when I was going through all of this, as we met in highschool. E knows first hand the amount of damage this stuff did to me, as again, e was there when it happened.

This is coming from someone who is both Indigenous and part of the alterhuman community. I have deep respect for spiritual experience, liminality, embodiment, animality, and the many ways people relate to their identities. I also deeply understand how important it is to protect cultural beliefs from mockery or erasure. But that’s not what’s happening in these conversations.

What’s happening is people {usually white or otherwise non-native, usually well-meaning} trying to claim that disbelief in physical shapeshifting is somehow oppressive because “many Indigenous cultures believe in that.” And I need to say: That framing is not only inaccurate, it’s deeply disrespectful and weirdly patronizing.

It leans on an old colonial trope that flattens Indigenous cultures into a kind of mystical monolith: “Look at the noble savages, so spiritual, so in touch with the animal world, if you don’t take their beliefs literally, you’re being racist!”

Do you hear how condescending that is? Do you see how it’s not actually respectful at all?

There are absolutely Indigenous beliefs involving shapeshifting, animal spirits, spiritual transformation, and altered states. These are rich, complex, and vary greatly between nations, tribes, and individual practitioners. But the vast, vast majority of these traditions do not describe or teach that a person can literally, biologically, physically become an animal the way you’d see in a werewolf movie or a fantasy novel. That is a Western, Hollywood idea projected onto cultures that use metaphor, spirit, and cosmology in ways non native audiences aren’t always taught to interpret.

In Indigenous storytelling and cosmology, Transformation is spiritual, it’s about connecting with a being, embodying aspects of an animal, or honoring a relationship with that spirit. Transformation is metaphorical, it teaches, warns, or preserves cultural memory. Transformation can be visionary: experienced in trance, dream, or ritual states not through molecular, biological change. Transformation is sometimes narrative, found in stories that explain creation, land features, family histories, or moral teachings, not instructions for literal, physical acts.

So no. saying “humans cannot literally physically transform into nonhuman animals” is not denying Indigenous truth. What it’s doing is refusing to misunderstand, distort, or infantilize Indigenous cosmologies to fit a modern online argument.

You can have a belief in shifting. You can feel deeply that your body and spirit are misaligned. You can explore that identity through art, ritual, experience, or symbolism. That’s all part of a valid alterhuman path. But please don’t defend your personal belief by dragging Indigenous cultures into it, especially if you’re not from those cultures. That isn’t cultural defense, that’s cultural use. And it ends up turning our beliefs into a rhetorical device.

Also: when you invoke Indigenous traditions as a shield for your own ideas, you’re speaking over (other, if you're indigenous yourself then sorry but we're going to have to disagree on this) Indigenous people, like me, who are standing here telling you, “Hey, that’s not what our beliefs mean.” And if your decolonial praxis doesn’t include listening to the people you’re invoking or twisting their beliefs? It’s not decolonial at all.

So to sum up:

You can believe in physical shifting as a personal spiritual truth. That’s your path. I think you're wrong and I don't want to interact with you personally, but that's your life and your truth. You can’t justify that belief by misrepresenting Indigenous cultures. You can respect Indigenous shapeshifting stories and rituals without forcing them into a Western physical framework. You can be alterhuman without mythologizing or misusing real cultures. And you can explore transformation without leaning on “other cultures believe it, so it must be valid” as a rhetorical crutch.

I want people to be able to talk about their spiritual and embodied experiences without shame. But that has to include respect, complexity, and accountability.

This is dangerous rhetoric, and if you're on the edges of it, please employ critical thinking and don't let other people (including me) tell you what to believe about your experiences. If you're happy and stable and doing fine, then whatever works for you, works for you. Unconventional beliefs do not automatically mean you need mental health treatment.

But regardless of where you sit on the alterhuman spectrum, if you're not okay and you feel like you need help, don't let it be only from strangers on the internet who (intentionally or otherwise) encourage you not to reach out to anyone but them.

Exactly so, and importantly, if someone else doesn't know they are at risk and they're one of the people watching you talk on Tumblr, you also do not know they are at risk. If you have neither experience with mental health issues nor personal knowledge of a person, you have absolutely no idea whether or not they are at risk.

Endels are, by the nature of it being a term tied to delusions, stating that they are experiencing delusions that affect their identity. P-shifters are claiming it's actually real. P-shifters are making a physical claim; endels and clinical zoanthropes are not. These are two wildly different things and I'm not honestly sure why you would ever treat them as though they're equivalent?

To expand this a bit to an edge case that I've seen a couple times recently and which I suspect prompted this line of thinking (please correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but it's the only way I can imagine these two things being treated as even a little bit the same thing): In the cases where someone who knows they're experiencing delusions is "reclaiming" the word p-shifter:

you can't "reclaim" a term that never belonged to you; you're just trying to change the meaning of the word entirely to something it's never meant,

the word is still making it sound like you're making a physical claim, because that's all it's ever meant, and I am thus going to assume you mean that until proven otherwise and you shouldn't be surprised I'm doing so, and perhaps most importantly,

this is a word that has been widely used to manipulate and harm people by promising no, physical shifting is real, you just can't do it because you haven't tried hard enough and if you listen to me and do everything I say you'll get there someday. Reclaimed terms are terms that have been used in a derogatory sense toward the group of people that is now reclaiming them. "P-shifter" is not a term that has ever been used that way, it's the self-identifier of a group of people that has historically been responsible for rampant manipulation and abuse of young therians and otherkin. This is admittedly not the best parallel because of the degree of inherently meaning something harmful being different, but it's a little like trying to "reclaim" the term TERF by changing it to mean something somewhat similar but ultimately different, and then being surprised when people assume you're a transphobe and treat you as such. Page just wrote a good post about this here that put it better than I can.

I'm going to post strawberrybabydog's tags here because it's honestly an extremely worthwhile read and brings up some excellent points that hadn't occurred to me since I'm an undel: