He Just Like Me Fr

Spent a good portion of time making sure others feel comfortable being alterhuman

And yes I'm fine here but it still took me awhile to ever figure out my own nonhuman identity, and I'm still figuring it out!

Never feel like you have to rush, or that you have to "prove" your identity, or that you have to be 100% sure at all times about everything, or that you HAVE to know everything

It's okay, you'll figure it out at some point

i think gatekeeping is unfathomably cringe and i think the way people in this community treat linkers (funlinkers especially) and voluntary identities in general is gross, but i recently came across an exchange that was really irritating to be fair and made me kind of understand the defensiveness.

it was in a comment thread under a video where a streamer was talking about a twitter user who was being 'cancelled' and they must have listed their fictionkins on their strawpage because that's what the comment was about.

person 1: i thought kinning meant that you related to a character?

person 2: it does mean that, not that you actually think you're that character.

person 3: i'm kin and it means that you relate heavily to a character, ppl who identify as "fictionkins" and genuinely think they're fictional characters are just deluded and make us look bad.

like no, that's not what "kinning" means at all. as far as i'm aware, kinning has always meant that you identify as a character in some capacity until people who weren't a part of the kin community made out like it meant something completely unrelated while looking down on people who are actually fictionkin or "kinnies", which is probably where the defensive aspect to the community comes from.

you have co-opted a term that has always meant one thing, said it means something completely different, and then turned around and call the people who use the term in its traditional meaning 'delusional'. that is very disrespectful. for the record i think term discourse is dumb and you can use whatever labels you want, but i understand the frustration.

to more or less usurp the term 'kinning' or 'kinnie' or whatever and twist it to mean your own definition, then claim that the people who the term has always belonged to are 'delusional' is just awful and absurd. "kinning" has always meant that you identify as a character.

personally i am funlink and all of my identities are voluntary and for fun and i use the term kinning to describe that aspect of myself, but i would never look down on involuntary fictionkins or claim that their terms mean something else entirely when it doesn't.

gifts to get your local fictionkin

Cosplay of themself

License to do anything they want

100k dollars cash

Money

Spikes to put the heads of their enemies on

Cool looking rock

i would give up everything if i could be a raccoon

living on the outskirts of society, in a hollowed out tree with a few others

scavenging for food and finding wild berries on the ground

simply making noises to communicate such as chattering, purring, hissing, barking

occasionally finding a nice human friend and being a nuisance to humans who are jerks

I think they should be welcomed here but they should (and I mean the general tiktok side of the community) mature a little? I think the culture shock will help a little, but both of us can see that there are bad parts specifically of the tiktok branch that should be shed off over time

Like the demonizing of certain dysphorias or how to deal it, or how they handle disabled and disordered people in their community

With all my complaints I have with that side of the community, I don't hate them nor do I want them to stay away, I want to mature though so they can be kinder to each other and themselves, as the discourse they have over there has hurt people

okay, ive seen way too many posts on the community tags talking about the tiktok ban and saying stuff like "i hope tiktok therians dont come in here theyre so awful and i hate them lol". and... i dont know what to tell you guys, i think thats mean as hell.

imagine, just for a second, that youre a therian on tiktok. at 13 years old, youve found a friendly community where people express themselves with masks, tails, and a type of movement called quadrobics. they seem to be having fun, so you decide to join in. and for a while, youre having fun too! you start practicing quadrobics, which is tough at first but you work hard to get better. you ask your parents for some cat masks, which you decorate with paint and faux fur. you make videos of yourself and your friends, wearing cat masks and dancing on all fours to some bland indie song.

then, out of nowhere, one of your posts goes viral. and suddenly, youre not having fun anymore.

"therians are crazy", "if you identify as a dog you should be chained and made to sleep naked outside", "my little brother came out as a therian and i bullied him until he stopped lol", "if i see a therian in the woods im shooting them", "if you want to be an animal, ill treat you like one".

again, YOURE 13. so you get defensive, because people you dont know are attacking you online and as a young teen, you dont know what to do to make it stop. so instead of confronting them, you try to please them instead. "im not crazy, im just having fun" turns into "i dont identify as an animal, only crazy people do that!" and then to "therians dont actually think were animals; thats lycanthropy and its wrong". this is what others in your community are saying, so it must be true, right? it helps slow down the criticism at least, if only for a little while; even if it never fully goes away. so you keep saying it, even to others in your community, because if it protects you from judgment, why not?

but now youre dealing with the possibility of your platform disappearing. youll lose your friends, the community youve worked so hard to be a part of. you heard some friends say they might switch to instagram if tiktok gets banned, while others prefer reddit or tumblr. Feeling curious (you didnt realize there were therians on other sites!), you decide to check out tumblr to see what that community is like there. the first post you come across at the top of the tag? "i hope tiktok therians dont come here theyre so awful and i hate them lol".

so yeah. thats the problem with making blanket statements like these; it only pushes away members of our own community. shame is not a motivator, and your aggressiveness gets us nowhere. remember, one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar. so be kind.

What do y'all know about life-size dog beds

Hi bird therians! I'd like to present the following list of definitions of avian terminology; instincts and anatomy. Specifically, terms for things that many birdkin may already be aware of due to their own shifts, but not know the word for or even that it's a real and normal thing. Why do I make that assumption? Because my own mind was blown every time I discovered one of these words, the way things I would do or phantom parts I would feel suddenly made sense. So I hope to induce the same reaction in at least someone.

Behaviors

Mantling is mostly a bird of prey thing, the action of leaning over a kill and shielding the spoils with your wings so as to defend it from thieves. I can do no better of a description than a photo, included at the bottom of this post and for raptors it will probably spark recognition.

Rousing is the word for that "slowly fluff up the feathers and then shake the whole body" thing that birds do. Yes, it does have a name! Birds do it when relaxed or just chilly. It is not a threat display. I experience this as like an near-involuntary action -- like scratching an itch or sneezing -- and because I'm not actually raising physical feathers it feels kind of like shivering. But it sort of feels frustrating that I can't seem to achieve it. Like when a sneeze goes away.

Feather-plucking (pterotillomania) is a maladaptive habit birds in captivity develop when they are stressed. You see it most often with parrots, because they're kept as pets more than other birds and are also extremely intelligent so more easily understimulated. Sometimes this does feel like being a bird in captivity and a lot of you might experience this instinct without knowing what it is your brain's asking to do because you have no feathers. Calling it pterotillomania is helpful to me because I have actual dermotillomania and if my body had feathers I'd be plucking them.

Anatomy

Nictitating membrane. Starting with this because you may already know it by now. The third eyelid of birds, translucent, drawn sideways across the eye so that you can keep it moist while still being able to see. Also, as you may know, relevant to cat therians!

Crop. Part of the digestive tract of a bird in the throat where food is temporarily stored before being digested. If you had these shifts it would feel like, according to Wikipedia, basically an enlarged portion of the esophagus.

Keel. An extension of the sternum, the structure to which flight muscles are attached. If you had these shifts it would feel like a thin bone going beneath (or I guess on a humanoid body plan, in front of) your ribcage.

Cloaca. In the interest of not having to mark this post mature, I will not define or describe this one. I encourage you to look it up. Mammals are already working to reduce the stigma surrounding these types of shifts and instincts; we can do the same. There is no shame in it. You're a bird and birds have these. Accept it.

Birds do have sensation in our beaks. There are nerve endings in the beak. Not as much as, say, human skin, but yes, birds can feel touch on their beaks. If you can feel your beak, great! That is anatomically correct, and it certainly does not make you fake!

And now for your enjoyment, a mantling eagle:

Me, jokingly: haha raccoon kin? Nah not for me my kin experience is very spiritual and perdonal to m-

ONE SPECIFIC REEL ON INSTAGRAM: hey actually raccoons’ tails wag, actually :)

Me: oh god. Oh fuck.

Therians be like