Holy shit I started this in 2024 and I realized I never finished it, so here’s me!

Reminder to survey makers to not use their school emails for these things, especially if they’re a minor (also don’t use school emails to answer surveys). That is a one-way ticket to accidentally doxxing yourself. This is a rule of thumb for the internet in general, I’m going to use google forms as an example since that’s a popular survey-making website. Google forms will do this on surveys you make, even if you personally don’t write it down in the description box. Anyone now knows where you currently go to school just by visiting the page.

Stay safe out there and know your internet safety, folks.

jukebox-jackal:

Hello creatures!! Many times i have seen beings explain that transpecies is separate from transids, but i do not see the difference.

I would very much appreciate it if anyone would take the time to educate or explain it to me. I would love to learn.

Dropping this here, since it contains links and information on how transspecies pre-dates transIDs:

Followers can probably reblog or comment with more info I don’t have on hand.

I could never really connect with how the popular depiction of a therian nowadays is like, a human with an animal mask? I’d rather just depict myself as an animal. If I wanted to get really symbolic I’d draw an animal in a human mask, but otherwise just an animal.

mumbling-martes:

hello bipoc alterhumans, i have a question for you!

i realised this was technically possible the other day and i wanted to get a consensus on it; what is the take on someone who kins a character that isnt their race?

Keep reading

“Don’t kin outside your race” is actually really old discourse lmao. It’s one of those “whatever? who cares?” things, similar to system members of different races. It doesn’t matter as long as they handle it respectfully. IE: if someone’s kintype/fictotype is a black character, that doesn’t automatically give them a pass to do blackface or whatever. Just don’t use that kintype as grounds to speak for that race, and there are also likely cultural things that may not be open to you.

Once someone gets into the territory of “how do I dress black” or “how do I start talking black” now we’re starting to have a problem. (Although this specific example of black people is tricky, because things are culturally taken from us all the time and rebranded for public use unfortunately.)

mumbling-martes:

hello bipoc alterhumans, i have a question for you!

i realised this was technically possible the other day and i wanted to get a consensus on it; what is the take on someone who kins a character that isnt their race?

Keep reading

“Don’t kin outside your race” is actually really old discourse lmao. It’s one of those “whatever? who cares?” things, similar to system members of different races. It doesn’t matter as long as they handle it respectfully. IE: if someone’s kintype/fictotype is a black character, that doesn’t automatically give them a pass to do blackface or whatever. Just don’t use that kintype as grounds to speak for that race, and there are also likely cultural things that may not be open to you.

Once someone gets into the territory of “how do I dress black” or “how do I start talking black” now we’re starting to have a problem. (Although this specific example of black people is tricky, because things are culturally taken from us all the time and rebranded for public use unfortunately.)

One of the things that made my drawings of myself more affirming was making the decision to draw myself at an accurate weight. I’m a chonker. I was the weight of the average wolf for a specific window of time, but that’s not the most up-to-date. The former is easier to find references for, but the most current feels more like myself. So the more I’ve drawn myself heavier, the more I’ve been able to refine the look.

Idk this is a ramble, but I guess my point is that bodies come in all different shapes and it can feel good to unshackle yourself if you weren’t the “”“standard”“” fitness of a creature.

You’re not the first person I’ve seen ask this and, don’t get me wrong because I don’t think this is a rude ask, but racism in alterhuman spaces isn’t a niche “alterhuman-brand” racism, you’d have to learn in general how to spot and avoid it. It’s all the same stuff you’d see outside of the communities, it’s just addressed less because (in nonhuman spaces in particular) there’s a “colorblind” mentality that doesn’t do much good and is a form of racism in and of itself. I can’t really point you to a singular source because I can’t personally teach you the in’s and out’s of what racism and cultural appropriation are, and the damage that’s done to POC both historically and currently. That’s more than a singular Tumblr post can really do, since it’s an extremely broad topic and moreso “historical and humanities education” territory.

Maybe that seems daunting and you’re not sure where to start, but wherever you start I promise the knowledge is applicable. My advice is to start with one specific thing and research it a ton, rinse and repeat for things you encounter later on. For example, it used to be really popular among therians to call their theriotypes “totems/totem animals” or “spirit animals”. From there you can research into “cultural appropriation of indigenous spiritual practices”, the results won’t be specific to therians but is applicable regardless.

As for what you can do actively, I’d say there’s a fine line to walk because ofc it’s good to call out these things when you see it, but also remember that you’re white lol. Which might feel “what do you mean?”, but I mean that don’t feel the need to “come to the rescue” yk?

Plurality 201 is understanding that:

1. Origins are not “categories” of systems
2. DID or OSDD are independent of origins and can also happen at literally any point in time much later in life (yes this includes systems formed from trauma not being synonymous with having a dissociative disorder. Dissociative disorders aren’t “having people in your head” disease)
3. A lot of skills may be learned and are not definitively set in stone (communication, visualization, etc.)

Projects I vaguely referenced in a bsky post, these two pieces aren’t sequential but are meant to be viewed together. This is an assignment where it got interest during critique but I couldn’t exactly explain Being Nonhuman in a way orthohumans could understand, so it ended up being viewed very symbolically (in ways that were a bit close, but still slightly off the mark).

The full, actual, explanation is that both pieces depict the alienation felt by being a nonhuman-identifying person in art school. The figures in the first image are vaguely human shaped, but featureless and hazy at best. They’re an idea of the human form, while the drawing of myself is very clear and detailed. It is also social isolation, because creating meaningful connections with others requires some self-authenticity, and no part of “being a dog” can really be explained to a fellow student most of the time.

The second image is an attempt to draw the human forms, which comes out just as squiggly as the figures. The hands lose color and form as the panels progress because it’s difficult to draw humans well enough. Everyone else has been doing it for years, it’s hard to tell how I even got in if I can’t do something basic like that, but I continue to scribble until it looks somewhat decent and the color starts to come back. I can keep the facade going for a little bit longer that I’m definitely a normal art student and can do the prerequisites that students have to do, and not that I’ve barely ever drawn a human figure in my life because that’s not a lens I can see myself in.

Drawing takes practice of course, so it’s not impossible to learn, but I am embarrassingly behind the entire body of visual arts type majors. A dog among towering figures that has to pretend to know how to do what they do