You can do whatever you want forever. Let's be nonhuman together

triied a brush that was rotting in my folders and i kinda liked it

Making animal noises at each-other,

Play fighting,

Running around together / chasing each other,

Putting your foreheads against each other,

Sharing your food with each other,

Finding big sticks and interesting rocks,

Botanically, a tomato is a fruit. A fruit is scientifically defined as the part of a plant that develops from the ovary after flowering and surrounds the seeds. It’s defined by its structure and function. In botanical categorization, apples, peaches, grapes, tomatoes, bananas, avocados, pumpkins, peppers, and corn kernels are fruits.

Culinarily, a tomato is a vegetable, because it’s a plant food that is neither starchy nor sweet and you usually don’t just eat it raw. Vegetables are culinarily defined by their flavor and how you cook them. In culinary categorization, any part of a plant can be a vegetable: roots (carrots, parsnips), leaves (lettuce, kale), stems (celery), seeds (peas, lima beans), and yes fruits (tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins). In culinary categorization, “fruits” are usually botanical fruits, though occasionally they are other parts of the plant instead, as long as they’re juicy and sweet (strawberries are actually the stems of a plant; the ovaries surrounding the seeds are the little seeds on the outside! Pineapples and figs are a weird flower-ovary fusion called multiple inflorescence!)

These are simply two different categorizational schemes that through the weirdness of historical linguistics use the same word “fruit” to mean different segments of the totality of plants. Neither is incorrect, because they are two different ways of categorizing plants for two different purposes.

Categories aren’t “real.” Categories don’t exist in nature. Things exist in nature, plants exist in nature, rocks and animals and genes and hormones and human experiences exist in nature. And humans look at the totality of everything and we come up with names and categories to sort and understand them. A category is not real; it is only useful or not useful. Botanical categories are useful for different reasons than culinary categories are, but they’re both useful ways to break up and understand the world. And they are useful in their own contexts, and may not be useful in other contexts. Botany has no use for defining what is and isn’t a “vegetable” so that’s just not a category in scientific botany. It’s a useful category for low-sweetness low-starch plant parts you cook in order to eat, though.

And we put everything into categories, and we have reasons for categorizing things the way we do—but we choose what traits are important to group by, and what traits aren’t. Vegetables, nuts, fruits, and grains are culinary plant food categories. And some categories are silly, like “is a taco a sandwich?” That’s a categorization game: what traits do we decide make an individual item part of the category or not?

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).

Something that is a constant point of talk in the Alterhuman community is "Where are the Elders at?" "Why don't Elders post as much anymore?"

And as someone who's been in the community for over 10 years now, I distinctly remember thinking "Hah, that'll never be me. I love posting about my alterhumanity" But low and behold, I've kinda fallen off from posting daily. Heck its a miracle if I make a post once a month! Sure I lurk around the tags and forums. I'm active in the comments at least. But I've definitely noticed my presence in the community falling to the back burner.

So I'm calling all "Elders" and "Greymuzzles"

Go ahead and pick a couple of questions from the following and answer them (or answer them all, I'm not a cop) vvvvvv

What are some ways that you still struggle with Alterhumanity?

What are some Alterhuman Success stories you have? (Whether it be finding a neat hack for dealing with species dysphoria or a fun affirming encounter you had such as coming out to a friend)

What are some lessons that you've learned after all these years?

What are some writings that you've done that you think are still relevant now? (feel free to link to them!)

What are some major differences in what the community was like when you discovered it vs how it is now?

How did you deal with the "Hype" of discovering your Alterhumanity wearing off?

1. I still struggle a lot with my alterhumanity namely in that I feel like I'm acting too human a lot of times! While I believe myself to be nonhuman down to a physical level, the fact that I still have to walk around mimicking a human routine and doing human actions can be pretty distressing. I catch myself feeling and thinking "I'm not even a human I shouldn't have to do this I could just run away right now." quite often, but less so than I did when I was in my teens. Especially early teens.

There is also an ever present worry that I've made it all up even though I've been reminded again and again by everything about my life that I absolutely am not. I don't know if it will go away, but it's gotten much easier to ignore.

2. This is more of an Adult Money Can Be Used For Goods And Services type deal but I got a human sized dog bed and set myself up a den with a nest inside of it beneath my bed so that I have a comfortable, dark, and cozy place to relax and hide away when I'm feeling stressed out and unable to function around others. My roommate very much so understands as he is a dog in some way, and so he's very supportive overall of my lack of human behavior and need for space.

3. Don't worry about it. It's very basic advice but it's the one I stick to the most closely. Constant worry and examination of your own identity will only lead to more doubt and distress in the long run. While I do participate in a bit of discourse from time to time and generally encourage people to use the correct definitions and terminology, I am not the identity and microlabel police. If that's what works for you, good on you, but please don't feel pressured to attempt to label and explain away every aspect of your identity. Also, Write. Please write. I already have a whole post detailing this but please write about your experiences. We lose out on hearing the voices of our whole community if they refuse to speak.

4. My neocities holds all my essays I think are relevant and some that are outdated but I keep up for posterity and archival reasons. I actively encourage anyone who may read this to keep a Neocities, Dreamwidth, Strawpage, Carrd.co, etc. About themselves.

5. In a way I feel the community now is both more open and less policed/harshly restrictive towards new members. I remember the 2000-2010s Period in which every new member was holding up Thorn of Therian Territory as their primary source of advice and the older community had reactively closed off in response to the very unflattering and rude portrayal of Naia Ōkami in the documentary she featured in as well as the rise of "therian" documentaries that depicted our community as being weird and cringe which in turn encouraged folks on tumblr to begin making otherkin and therian cringe posts. (Take this with a grain of salt. I was born in the early 2000s. I mostly experienced the 2010s aspect of this which had a huge uptick in bullying over youtube.)

We were policing the community out of a need to protect our own. And while there is certainly less now, I think we may fall back into a level of gatekeeping with the uptick of bullying on tiktok and us being present in the news now. I don't think we'll ever be allowed the same level of privacy and secrecy that we once had again, but I fear we may repeat ourselves out of perceived necessity.

I enjoy, genuinely, how open this community is. But between the misuse of terminology that's been around for ages, the attempted re-coining of some terms by certain individuals or the coining of new terms for experiences we already have words for (ie. The whole "Faunaluna" situation that went down on Tiktok late last year/earlier this year.) or the rise in folks claiming others are "larping" their alterhumanity, I think we may backslide into restrictive attitudes again if we cannot handle these with grace.

6. All that was exciting will eventually become mundane. I did feel disappointment and disconnect after the "wow" of discovering my alterhumanity wore off, but through keeping up with myself(selves) and engaging with my nonhumanity in little ways each day I've been able to keep that connection. Through how I dress, speak, act, eat, make art, etc. This is how I stay connected.

I also remind myself (and others) that it is well ant truly ok to feel disconnected some days. It will happen. Be gentle and kind to yourself.

7. I think from our newest generation I've rediscovered a bit of the spark I used to have back around when I was a similar age. Which again, not very long ago, but so much has changed. The emphasis on gear and masks and quads especially, and I do love the crafty part of our community.

In some cases you can find concentrated pheromone oils/sprays for game animals. These are meant for hunters but nothing is stopping you from using it as a casual outing scent, other than some people being irritated by the smell. I wouldn't recommend putting them directly on the skin, I've gotten some on my hand and had mild irritation afterwards, but you can do roughly the same act by spraying it on clothing and rubbing the clothing against objects.

I also would recommend sticking to cheaper sprays for this since you'll have to spray *more than average* for anything to transfer, unless you're doing it seconds after applying which could feel unnatural. Theres also always the alternative of just spraying it directly on the object which takes less sprays for any scent to stay, I think thats what most people already do, but again it'll feel less natural doing it that way.

overall, i believe i an a vessel of the many winged, many eyed beasts, moreso metaphorically and related to my alterhumanity than a spiritual thing, but it may prove to be spiritual for me.