J-0424X

my hearthome will always be the coniferous forest, but now i believe my dragon species migrates based on the season; near the coast on winter and forest-based from spring to autumn. this is based on the fact that although i love the cold, i dont tolerate extreme temperatures at all (neither hot nor cold), and i dont feel particularly connected to snow and ice, which is what a cold forest would be covered in on winter. thus, it would make sense that my species migrates when it gets too cold for an avian reptile to thrive.

why the coast? ive lived by the sea all my life, so it may have influenced my alterhumanity somewhat... but i believe my swimming adventures a few months ago had a part in all of it. i do feel very at home when im in the water, moving my claws and body to swim is very affirming in a way i couldnt have predicted. especially things like diving, jumping into the sea from high places, scavenging underwater, things that i have done since i was a hatchling just feel so right now.

my diet has changed too. when just a year ago i yearned to dive headfirst into a still-warm deer carcass, i now crave fish more than anything. cooked, raw, processed or fresh, i dont care. the kinds of fish my brain wants are useful for collecting species data too; i mostly crave fatty fish, like salmon and tuna, something i first chalked to a vitamin d deficiency (northern gang rise UP); but now its summer and im getting regular sunlight on my skin, and i still crave salmon like every day, so clearly something fishy (get it? get it? ok ill walk myself out) is going on. also the fact that i had fish tartare for the first time last year and that shit was like a religious experience

as i said, i dont think my appearance has changed mostly or at all, but knowing im slightly aquatic explains a lot about my coloring. im very blue, but i have that gold stripe i first added as an accent which didnt make a whole lot of sense for an animal that needs to camouflage in a forest. i thought at first that it was a sexual selection thing or maybe even sexual dimorphism, but that theory never convinced me hence why i never mentioned it in the blog. but it all makes sense now! im like a fish!! :D

Unfortunately, my brain won't enjoy any media normally

And I absolutely think it's valid to feel that way. Especially on platforms like tiktok and youtube, there seems to be a lot of misinformation, stereotyping and exclusion occurring and you typically see it from the more younger side (under 14) of the community. I don't particularly feel all that happy about it either and it's also part of why I made a tumblr account as I can actually be a little more serious here and people will actually be supportive.

Its just.. I hid my alterhumanity because I feared being judged when I am myself (and have been judged when I was myself). And I feel a bit of that again sometimes seeing those posts. (Stressing again that it's completely valid to feel that way. I'm not here to dictate/debate how people should talk or feel on the comfort of their own account)

I also "like" being like those "tiktok therians". I like quads, making masks, being extremely cringe and making stupid dance or lipsync vids. I love seeing others showing off their high/long jumps, seeing others new gear, those "how to dress/feel more like/connected your theriotype" posts and it's the same regurgitated ideas. I never got to fully do that during my teen years and its so much fun getting to do it now that I can authentically be myself. (honestly why "turning red" is such a big comfort movie for me)

I know I'm older, not a child and me expressing myself in a "childish" manner is no longer palatable to most. And maybe it's truly naive of me to say but I also. Just don't care. Why should I have to care that I'm no longer a child, I still want to have fun whilst being myself. I've spent so much of my time wallowing in my misery, I just. Want this, at least.

[Pt: Follow up on ear tag earring, edn PT.]

I first mentioned this idea in an earlier post about some transspecies plans. You can fin it here(link) So here is a little doodle! I'm still unsure of what I want to write on the tag, so my temporary text idea is "Werewolf", MX for Masculine Xenine, the anchor delta(link), the ursa minor(link) and the sun-del(link)

Image IDs below cut! :3

This is kinmisia.

Sigh. Many people can't understand that language evolves. ｡°(°¯᷄◠¯᷅°)°｡

Edit:

From @a-dragons-journal: for the last time,

1. "kin" as in "otherkin" does not stem from kin as in family, it stems from otherkind, as in "of another kind"

2. "kin" as in "kinning" does not stem from kin as in family either, it was explicitly stolen from otherkin and acting like it was never supposed to be that is revisionist history

Therian = someone who identifies as an animal (sometimes you'll see this defined as earthen animals only, but this is historically not necessarily part of the label - if it's animalistic, it qualifies)

Otherkin = someone who identifies as nonhuman (be that animal, plant, sapient nonhuman people, object, concept, etc.)

Connotatively (ie, in terms of associations and cultural nuances), there are some cultural distinctions as well. The therian and otherkin communities actually arose completely independently, and only later started interacting so closely that in many ways they've nearly merged.

The otherkin community originates from a few separate groups of elves, namely the Silver Elves and the Elf Queen's Daughters, both of whom originate somewhere in the 1970s (exact dates often difficult to pin down) and which then led to the Elfinkind Digest, a mailing list originally intended for elves but which quickly expanded to other nonhuman beings, within which the term otherkind (which would rapidly become otherkin, as far as I can tell due to typographical errors that accidentally got preserved in the lexicon) was coined to avoid the inconvenience of having to write elfin-/dragon-/orc-/hobbit-/etc-kind constantly within the Digest. The influence of these groups and communities has meant the otherkin community has always had heavy influence from New Age and neo-pagan philosophies, and has always leaned toward spiritual explanations - though certainly never exclusively.

The therian community, on the other hand, originates from a messaging board called alt.horror.werewolves, often abbreviated to AHWW within the therian community these days, in the early 1990s. While this messaging board was originally a fansite for werewolves, at a certain point people started turning up who felt themselves to be (were)wolves under the skin, and gradually that kind of discussion took over much of the board. (Not just wolves, either - some of the earliest weres I remember seeing in logs include a bat and, of course, the now-famous werePontiac.) If you've ever seen animal-people, particularly older ones, calling themselves weres instead of/in addition to therians, this is why - that was the original word we used for the concept. Culturally speaking, the therian community has always been very focused on the concept of shifts because of these origins - it is, if I'm not mistaken, where the otherkin community adopted that terminology from. The therian community also tends to be more focused on the animality of being non-human - which is why these days that's usually used as the primary distinction between otherkinity and therianthropy.

I just address everyone as "you."

To me, all of you are "you." Whoever I’m standing in front of and talking to - that’s "you." I also want to be just "you" when people address me.

I don’t like remembering names. I don’t like it when people call me by my given name. I can’t even come up with a nickname for myself online - it all feels so forced.

Having to constantly use some weird nickname or voice command just to talk.

I remember people’s appearances, but I often get confused and don’t recognize someone who’s changed their clothes or gotten a haircut.

I guess that’s exactly why we need names. But people can change their names, too...

It’s all so complicated.

Most animals don’t bother with names. Appearance (body shape, color) and scent are enough.

But in a society like this, people even change those. It’s exhausting.

I don’t want a name. I don’t want to introduce myself when meeting someone. It’s pointless to me.

That's their FIRST question: "What's your name?" I freeze for a couple of seconds, then tiredly tell them my real name, quietly hoping they won't use it. I don't like names. I really don't like any names.

gettingvetted here.

Let me tell you a story about how livestock animals work.

In the beginning, God created the horse. God looked at the horse and saw that it was beautiful and strong. “However,” God said, “it breaks too easily.”

Then God created the cow. God looked at the cow and saw that it was more durable than the horse, and tasted good to boot. “However,” God said, “it poops too much.”

Then God created the goat. God looked at the goat and saw that it was perfect.

God looked around and saw that he still had some spare bits of fluff on his work table, but no brains to put into it. So then God created the sheep.

Now let me tell you what my equine surgery professor said on the first day of class.

“Horses are only interested in two things: homicide, and suicide.”

Horses don’t got enough toes.

So, back right after the dinosaurs fucked off and joined the choir invisible, the first ancestors of horses were scampering about, little capybara-looking things called Eohippus, and they had four toes per limb:

They functioned pretty well, as near as we can tell from the fossil record, but they were mostly messing around in the leaf litter of dense forests, where one does not necessarily need to be fast but one should be nimble, and the 4 toes per limb worked out pretty good.

But the descendants of Eophippus moved out of the forest where there was lots of cover and onto the open plains, where there was better forage and visibility, but nowhere to hide, so the proto-horses that could ZOOM the fastest and out run thier predators (or, at least, their other herd members) tended to do well.  Here’s the thing- having lots of toes means your foot touches the ground longer when you run, and it spreads a lot of your momentum to the sides.  Great if you want to pivot and dodge, terrible if you want to ZOOM.  So losing toes started being a major advantage for proto-horses:

The Problem with having fewer toes and running Really Fucking Fast is that it kind of fucks your everything else up.

When a horse runs at full gallop, it sort of... stops actively breathing, letting the slosh of it’s guts move its lungs, which is tremendously calorically efficient and means their breathing doesn’t fall out of sync.  But it also means that the abdominal lining of a horse is weirdly flexible in ways that lead to way more hernias and intestinal tangling than other ungulates.  It also has a relatively weak diaphragm for something it’s size, so ANY kind of respiratory infection is a Major Fucking Problem because the horse has weak lungs.

When a Horse runs Real Fucking Fast, it also develops a bit of a fluid dynamics problem- most mammals have the blood going out of thier heart real fast and coming back from the far reaches of the toes much slower and it’s structure reflects that.  But since there is Only The One Toe, horse blood comes flying back up the veins toward the heart way the fuck faster than veins are meant to handle, which means horses had to evolve special veins that constrict to slow the Blood Down, which you will recognize as a Major Cardiovascular Disease in most mammals. This Poorly-regulated blood speed problems means horses are prone to heart problems, burst veins, embolisms, and hemophilia.  Also they have apparently a billion blood types and I’m not sure how that’s related but I am sure that’s another Hot Mess they have to deal with.

ALSO, the Blood-Going-Too-Fast issue and being Just Huge Motherfuckers means horses have trouble distributing oxygen properly, and have compensated by creating fucked up bones that replicate the way birds store air in thier bones but much, much shittier.  So if a horse breaks it’s leg, not only is it suffering a Major Structural Issue (also also- breaking a toe is much more serious when that toe is YOUR WHOLE DAMN FOOT AND HALF YOUR LEG), it’s also hving a hemmorhage and might be sort of suffocating a little.

ALSO ALSO, the fast that horses had to deal with Extremely Fast Predators for most of thier evolution means that they are now afflicted with evolutionarily-adaptive Anxiety, which is not great for thier already barely-functioning hearts, and makes them, frankly, fucking mental.  Part of the reason horses are so aggro is that if deinied the opportunity to ZOOM, it’s options left are “Kill everyone and Then Yourself” or “The same but skip step one and Just Fucking Die”.  The other reason is that a horse is in a race against itself- it’s gotta breed before it falls apart, so a Horse basically has a permanent terrorboner.

a crow therian cookbook ~

behold! the passion project i’ve been working on! filled with tons of decadent recipes and crow notes and stories :)