Current Shifts

unhinged thirty days of otherkin challenge, day 15: how do you make your room/home/surroundings more suited to your kintype?

i have some decorations that i switch out for different seasons, and a few kintype-specific trinkets, but unfortunately i don't have the energy/space of my own to do much rn :(

my most treasured kintype-specific trinket atm is my fairy nightlight :) my little moon

i would like to get those fabric leaf vines to tape onto my bedroom ceiling. green for spring/summer, and red for the fall.

maybe one day i could get a bedroom with a mattress big enough to fashion into a proper nest with blankets and pillows and such? something to think about.

working on the shading to a piece featuring one of my catfolk characters, and i was like, "oh, i can just feel my own face to get an idea of where the light falls and the shadows are!" before i realized i have the wrong head shape on 😔

Green forest at Poço da Alagoinha by Gregor Samsa www.northernadventures.co

Hi this is a positivity post regarding alterhuman diet dysphoria versus actual biology

(unless you already know these things)

To herbivore nonhumans who don't want to/can't do a vegan or vegetarian diet but feel dysphoric about being able to digest meat:

Herbivorous animals are not unable to digest meat.

Animal matter is actually easier for a body to process than plant matter, and herbivorous species need very complex digestive systems in order to support their lifestyles. This is why cows have four stomachs; why horses practically go into critical system failure if they get even a little bit sick. Animals that live mostly by grazing actually still do need nutrients that carnivores and omnivores get through their natural diets, which is why farming supply stores sell salt licks for animals. In the wild herbivores will quite often find ways to sneak some meat into their diets by eating bugs or small vertebrates, if you didn't already know about the fun fact of deer eating baby birds. "Obligate herbivore" meaning an animal that can ONLY physically digest plants is not a real ecological term the way "obligate carnivore" meaning animal that can ONLY physically digest meat is, though you might see it in other usages (i.e., referring to an animal that relies on a plant-based diet for all of its nutrients).

If a wild deer was given access to human society, they would probably not opt for veganism for connection with their true species; they would more likely appreciate having a way to get sodium so easily. This isn't to shame anyone who does choose a vegan/vegetarian diet for species euphoria reasons, but more to reassure folks who can't, you aren't less of an herbivore.

To carnivore nonhumans who feel dysphoric that their body can't digest raw meat like wild carnivores can:

It can!

The reason you don't want to be eating raw meat like a wolf or stoat or monitor lizard is because you will get sick or you will contract a parasite, which might sound like just a different reason to feel disconnected from your species, but here's the main two things:

1. The actuality is that wild wolves and stoats and monitor lizards DO get sick and contract parasites. This is often how wolves and stoats and monitor lizards die in the wild and why ones in captivity, being fed parasite-free meat and having illnesses treated, live longer. There are raw meats you can eat safely, you just have to know where they're sourced from and that they're guaranteed not to have risks! That's why sushi is a thing, and why people say you can technically eat raw cut (not ground) beef but not pork or chicken. Cooked meat is also often tastier and easier for the body to process (cit.: Grug et al. 780,000 BCE) so that's why humans have loved their medium-well steak since they came up with it. And 2. wild predators are "able to eat raw meat" mostly because they killed it, so it's fresh and hasn't been sitting around able to pick up bacteria, the way raw meat you get at a grocery store would have. This is why a lot of prey animals have a "play dead" defense mechanism: most predators do not want to eat something that's already dead, because it might get them sick.

If a wild owl was given access to human society, they would probably not desire only the rawest of meats for connection with their true species; they would more likely appreciate having access to food that had all the pathogens cleaned and/or scorched out of it.

Savoie, juillet 2020

unhinged thirty days of otherkin challenge, day 28: how many fingers do you have and why?

not sure about the fauns - either four or five on each hand, with the outermost fingers functioning as thumbs.

sleepyhead has five on each hand, same as humans do.

why? don't worry about it.

Territory, and What it Is to Be a Dragon

That last essay I reblogged got me thinking about what being dragon really means to me, what the core of it is, so here I am writing.

(Obviously my experiences of draconity and what it means to be a dragon are not going to be universal. When I say "dragon" in this post, I mean specifically my species of dragon; I just don't know what we call ourselves in our own tongue, so I only have dragon to call it.)

Disclaimer aside:

What is it to be a dragon?

Dragon is many things, many small things that come together to form a larger picture. Or at least, that's how dragon-in-human-skin is.

Flight, for one. Flight is the first thing I remember wanting so badly that it hurt all the way down to the core of my bones. What is there to say about it? It's home, it's life; a grounded dragon is a dead dragon. Flight is hard work, yes, but the sky is where we are safest, where the only thing that can touch us is another dragon, and it's difficult for even them to approach unnoticed. Hunting from above is the safest and most effective way to do it. Patrolling the territory is easiest when one doesn't have to contend with any obstacles but the currents of the wind.

I have to concur with Rook (@/words-of-wolf) in that aforementioned essay; the violence in me does not come from the hunt, it comes from the territory. Dragons are viciously territorial creatures, more often than not willing to die for our claim, our lair, our hoard. But the hunt... the hunt is swift, and lethal, and does not strike dragonbrain as particularly violent. A hunt isn't a fight. I don't know whether dragon!me thought of my prey as beings capable of fear and pain; we were sort of sapient (enough so to have names, at least), but only sort of.

Territory, though. Territory is core to being dragon, for me. A dragon needs to claim things and places as mine, and it will, whether or not that claim is appropriate. Much like a parrot, if it doesn't have an appropriate outlet, it will make an inappropriate one (and sometimes it will do so even if it is given an appropriate outlet - despite having an actual territory my brain likes to claim any room I spend a significant amount of time in as mine, even if it's technically shared space, and I've almost lashed out at a coworker for the crime of turning the fan off in my room when it was just as much his room as mine). There is a certain amount of possessiveness to a dragon that is inescapable.

My mother often questions why dragons hoard gold. I can talk about courting behaviors, I can talk about how it theoretically proves you're able to protect something precious to a mate, but in the end, the answer is simply because we must. Hoard is core to us, as much as allogrooming is to a primate or hunting is to a cat. My hoard serves no purpose now; I have no other dragons to court even if I wanted to. But still I am driven to hoard nonetheless, just as a cat is driven to hunt no matter whether it's actually hungry or not. Dragonbrain only sort of cares about why territory and hoard are important, how they feed and protect and offer mating opportunities. It just knows that they are important, and that it will fight to the death to defend them - why only sort of matters.

This is, I think, a lot of where my draconic pride comes from. Draconic pride is something we talk about in draconic spaces with some regularity; whatever the kind of dragon, there's more often than not some amount of pride and vanity associated with being a dragon, any kind of dragon. It's instinctive for many of us. It's probably culturally learned for all of us. But there is also a sense of natural pride that comes with this is mine, none can take it from me, I think. Pride, too, is core to draconity, in all its flawed glory, but it is integrally tied with these things, and perhaps that's why it's so core to draconity. (Perhaps that's why it's so common as well - I've rarely met a dragon who isn't some degree of territorial.)

Watkins Glen by Jeffrey Jones

John Dowd (American, b. 1960, Western MA, USA, based Provincetown, MA, USA and New York, NY, USA) - Moon Shadows, Paintings: Oil on Linen

No more sterile white boxes.