he/him ★ wy/wyrm ★ she/her ★ they/them ★ ser/serp
bigender + aroace, and a furry too! check out my art @wyrmspade
i am adult and attend university in scotland!
i'm a psychological alterhuman who feels both animal and human. i identify as such due to the way being autistic has prevented me from identifying with conventional notions of humanity, and because i just enjoy thinking of myself as an animal!
★ i am cool being referred to as nonhuman and inhuman, but as of now i do not consider myself therian or otherkin!
drawing requests are closed
my identity is pretty complicated. i'm planning to write something up about it soon! for now here's a brief overview:
core identities: (altertypes)
★ dragon, fallow deer, family leporidae (rabbits and hares)
in orbit: (satellotypes - from strongest to weakest)
★ other deer species, unicorn
★ horse, fox
★ wolf, marten, mountain lion
this blog is a safe place for endogenic systems and voluntary alterhumans
★ more about me under the cut! thank you for stopping by my blog :3 !
🌿 interests
- gothic lit
- cosmic/lovecraftian horror
- scooby-doo
- marbles
- creative writing and general literature (i study english!)
- warrior cats
- wings of fire
- sky: children of the light
- animal jam
🌈 music
- wych elm
- florence + the machine
- AURORA
- oddfellow's casino
- the monkees
- the beatles
- golden age musicals
this is a sideblog! my main is @wyrmalien; i'll follow and ask from there :3
thank you for stopping by!! i'd love to become friends with people within the community so please dont hesitate to interact with me! if you decide to follow, thank you for coming on this journey with me!
lovely photo dividers by youokaymilo , colour dividers by mamimikey ★
Hello!! I hope this doesnt come off as rude, I'm still learning more about alterhumanity and otherkin and anything alike.. I noticed one of your posts that said Alterhumanity only includes certain groups, and all this time Id been using it to describe ANYONE who identifies as nonhuman on any level. Should I use nonhuman instead, as a more inclusive term?
This isn’t rude at all! Thank you for this ask! I appreciate folks who reach out to learn more about alterhumanity.
I apologize if there’s been some confusion around my posts. The thing is: alterhuman is an inclusive term. It was coined to be that way. I often compare it to the term queer when explaining its purpose; in its current usage, queer is an umbrella term that’s inclusive of all who are LGBTQIA+ in some way. Similarly, alterhuman is an umbrella term encompassing many experiences that are considered “non-normative” to *(ortho)human society and its concept of identity.
(*Orthohuman is the antonym for alterhuman. Envision your average person on the street who has no connection to this subculture. That’s an orthohuman. This is distinguished from humans since there are human alterhumans, but I digress.)
The issue isn’t a lack of inclusivity. Alterhuman was coined for everyone. The issue is that there’s many folks who assume alterhuman is synonymous with nonhuman, which it isn’t. This leads to the erasure of other alterhumans and their experiences, largely because nonhumanity is centered a lot.
Make no mistake: nonhumanity is still an experience that’s included under this concept. It’s not wrong for someone to talk about their nonhumanity as a part of their alterhumanity, but my posts are in relation to an ongoing issue of folks mistakingly treating this label as another way of saying nonhuman. Being nonhuman isn’t the only way to be alterhuman. Moreover, folks need to stop and reconsider their assumptions that either a.) all alterhumans are animals or nonhuman in general or b.) animality and/or nonhumanity are the core part(s) of everyone’s alterhumanity. A lot of language in the community— such as using beasts/critters/creatures/etc in referral to the alterhuman community collectively or presenting surveys as something for all alterhumans but only asking questions in context to nonhumanity— exhibits these assumptions, which is an issue for alterhumans like myself and many folks I know in this community.
There’s plenty of ways to be alterhuman. Some ways pertain to who or what you are as an individual, and some ways pertain to atypical relationships you have with various things (animals, fiction, mythology, objects, concepts, etc). That’s just the surface of what alterhumanity can be, whereas nonhumanity is a very specific experience that focuses on one’s species.
I recommend using nonhuman / nonhumanity / nonhuman community when you’re specifically talking about nonhumanity. You can still reference alterhumanity since nonhumanity is a form of alterhumanity. Just know that nonhumanity and alterhumanity aren’t interchangeable. In other words: nonhuman is the word you’re looking for when you describe the experience of anyone who fully or partially identifies as nonhuman on any level.
Alterhuman is an umbrella term that encompasses multiple experiences. The groups I list in my post(s) are specified not because the term alterhuman is exclusive to them, but because they are often overlooked in contrast to nonhuman experiences (otherkin, therian, holotheres, etc). Erasure of these experiences happens a lot, which is why I specified them when discussing the meaning of alterhumanity. Don’t feel discouraged, though: you’re not the first to ask this! Folks confuse the two as synonyms quite often, and there’s been clarifications before my own on the subject.
Like I said before, think of how queer is used as a term. When people talk about queerness, it applies to many experiences. One’s romantic and sexual orientation or lack thereof, one’s preference in presentation or personal referrals, one’s gender or sex, tertiary attraction, polyamory, relationship anarchy, etc. Nowadays, queerness can refer to anything because it’s a term meant to include and represent a diverse array of experiences. Although it’s usually not intentional, referring to the concept with only one experience in mind— like only focusing on the experiences of gay men for example— contradicts its purpose.
The same applies to alterhumanity. Alterhumanity is meant to include all sorts of experiences that are treated as atypical or alternative to the human experience, including experiences that aren’t human at all. That said, it isn’t exclusively about nonhumanity, just as queerness isn’t exclusively about gay men (like in the example I gave).
I’m not asking for nonhumans to stop using the term, nor am I saying that only a few groups can call themselves alterhuman. Rather, I’m asking that folks step back and think of their peers when they refer our community and term so loosely. I’ve seen a few folks here and there justify their usage as “Well, for me, it’s about nonhumanity!” which is fine if they’re explicitly talking about their own experiences. But when they use it that way for the community as a whole, it’s dismissing many of their peers who constantly have to remind everyone that we too exist and have as much of a right to be unapologetically ourselves as every nonhuman does.
and not in the way of wanting more people to have a dissociative disorder, but in the way of plurality being more accepted and known about.
and not just traumagenic plurality; all types of plurality.
everyone deserves a safe place to be themselves, which includes plurals of all kinds, no matter the origin.
we've known about our system for over 5 years now, and we've only managed to muster the courage to tell 2 people in our life about our plurality. we'd like it to be more, but we don't out of fear. fear of more abuse, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, etc. Those fears are such common experiences throughout the system community that it's become a known problem, but by working to make the stigma around plurality disappear, we get closer and closer each day to a plural future. ♡
Much opining about how aberrant our experiences as non/alterhumans are but I think fundamentally it’s important to keep in mind that more people than we think are capable of understanding us.
AND IN ADDITION there is nothing stopping you from reinforcing and being subject to existing social forces no matter how aberrant you think your experience or identity is. I’m afraid this goes for being queer in whatever sense too. I feel a little silly even typing this out but yet I see posts to the contrary with frequency, so.
a feature from our editor at ANIMAL 🐾 "Among Tigers Wild: Visions of Alterhumanity in William Blake's Lyca Poems" is half essay, half informal exploration of William Blake, Romanticism, and alterhuman identity in Blake's poems "The Little Girl Lost" and "The Little Girl Found", collectively known as the Lyca poems.
Read now on our website:
From the editor: an alterhuman reading of "The Little Girl Lost" and "The Little Girl Found"
If you guys wanna help out with a very cool project run by scientists go to zooniverse.org
There are multiple different projects you can contribute to - including zoology and astronomy
You get to identify different things to help with a scientific dataset, and you have a chance of spotting something really cool (I saw a wild turkey on one)
Go check it out if you wanna contribute to science and also have fun
I think it’s really nice that there’s folks who queer the human experience by expressing themselves in animalistic or generally nonhuman ways while being human.
I like that there’s a space for folks who associate themselves with animals, other nonhuman species, and people and species from fiction while respecting spaces for those who are and live those exact experiences.
I don’t feel like my identity being disrespected because there’s human beings who like to explore nonhumanity or fictionhood as an activity, a creative practice or exercise.
One of the first subcultures I became familiar with were furries. Although I left said community for personal reasons, I still somewhat look back on that community fondly. It was the first space where I felt comfortable with presenting myself as nonhuman, albeit in a covert manner. From costumes to video games and other art, I enjoyed seeing so many projects geared towards the Other. I am no longer a furry. Most furries are not nonhuman. Either way, I respect that community for the doors it (unexpectedly) opened up for me.
I feel like the case could be said of otherpaw and fictionpaw communities. Their experiences may not be the same as ours, but we each understand and explore what being Other consists of in our own ways. That could invite humans (both orthohuman and alterhuman alike), nonhumans and all manners of people in this world to commune together more. I welcome otherpaws and fictionpaws wholeheartedly.
i want to preface this by saying I don't see transspecies and transgender as equal in weight, but as parallels. as someone who is both, they overlap in certain aspects but are widely different communities. that said,
otherpaw reminds me alot of gender nonconformity. i think, as a trans man, anyone should be able to express themselves in gender presentation as they like. femininity, androgyny, masculinity (etc) without it directly dictating your gender identity. GNC does not make you transgender. right? makes sense. in a similar sense, presenting as a nonhuman animal without being a therian is fine. doing quads, wearing gear, making moodboards, collecting things related to that species. these things should be completely normal. the same way gender nonconformity should be completely normal.
anyway. otherpaw, copinglink, pet regressors too. anyone who feels their alterhumanity is in any way voluntary.
lmao at the inherent hubris of a committee of influencers holding a vote for a pride flag on a website that looks and sounds like it’s pitching a tech startup. The proposed flags look like pharmaceutical logos.
They (and the vote) are on the polyamproud website. I don’t want to discourage anybody from actually voting if they genuinely like any of the designs, but I am wildly skeptical that the creation of a website will be what achieves widespread acceptance and recognition of a community symbol.
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
My unsolicited opinions on the flags are:
Tricolor: It’s Fine I Guess. I find this one the most acceptable of the bunch but I dislike the jewel tones. The asymmetrical chevron feels unwarranted; I think it would better if the heart were centered fesswise.
Tetracor: I don’t trust this one. This flag is trying to sell me something. Looks like the logo of an insurance company with an app. Jewel tones again.
Wide Band: Meaningless. Forgettable. Looks like a blanket I would put on a horse. Five colors is too many for a flag, especially one that’s just horizontal bars.
Heart Continuum: Look I’m not against curves on flags or otherwise but this flag is a vexillogical mistake. Three different shades of purple next to each other? Seriously? What the fuck is that little triangle in the corner trying to accomplish. This should have been three colors at most.
In addition, I find the website to be unforgivably smug. Maybe this makes me a curmudgeon and a hater for criticizing what might be a good faith effort and not just an attempt to promote their podcast and patreon. I just think that if you want to design a community flag, you should release it into the wild and see if it survives, like nature intended.
*looks at the first flag with the topic “polyamory” in mind*
*gets an Association for the off-centre chevron and looks dubious-to-disgusted*
So the blue stripe is the man of the main couple, the pink stripe is the woman of the main couple, and the violet stripe is the additional lesser partner they brought in to spice things up? Is that what they were thinking?
As for the chevron, I don’t know and I probably don’t want to know.
But as for the rest, there is actually a reason for the color choice, and it’s that it’s based on the original polyamorous flag designed in 1995 by Jim Evans. Its blue, red, and black bars represent honesty, love, and solidarity. The pi symbol, now widely criticized for being too obscure, was intended to be a reference that only fellow polyamorous people would get.
The reason this flag is such an eyeburner is that it was made in MS Paint at a time when most computers had an 8 bit color palette. These were the only color choices ole Jim had to work with in 1995:
I remember these days. It was a simpler time.
But if there is one lesson I would like to impress upon contemporary flag designers it’s that flag color choices must be broad. They should never involve hex codes or require the eyedropper tool to reproduce to a recognizable degree. The average person should be able to recreate a flag’s design with the 8-crayon box of crayolas.
And honestly, strictly as a print or fabric reproduction, the original flag doesn’t look terrible! But these days, most people are going to encounter pride flags on a screen much more often than they’re going to encounter them in print or as a physical flag. So for literal decades people have been tweaking the original flag’s colors to make them more appealing on-screen.
That’s more or less how we arrived at the current infinity heart that remains popular.
ALT
ALT
I would’ve made the black bar wider for aesthetic reasons, but because flag designs should be broad enough to be recognizable when tweaked, I could just do that without announcing that I’d redesigned the flag. It would still be the same flag.
And guess what!!! Polyamorists have voted on a flag before! In 2019, an organization declared THIS the “new official polyamory pride flag.”
ALT
But I think PolyamProud did really nail it with one thing, and that’s the Polyamory Flag Redesign Cycle. This is exactly what I think is going to happen when a NEW official polyamory flag is announced.
ALT
And why I think you should just use whatever flag you want.
Frustrated to see this go around without the explanation for why the original flag is Like That. Yes, I agree, it’s hard on the eyes! You can desaturate the colors without declaring it a new flag because that’s how flags work!!!
ALT
ALT
These flags are nonstandard but they are both still recognizable despite being color shifted. The way anything looks on a screen will differ from one screen or browser or operating system to the next, and it will look radically different in physical media. So it is truly not a big deal to shift the colors a little.
Anyway if so many people apparently hate the infinity heart so much I don’t know why they didn’t just do, like, this:
ALT
Flags are made up and you can do whatever you want with them forever! Use this one if you want to, I don’t care!!! If you don’t like something about it then change it!!!! I love flags and I hate discourse!!!!!!
A huge issue I have with most “pride flags” invented in the last ten years comes down to this obsession with color parity that makes no sense for a FLAG.
People treat flag design like logo design because they hear ‘limited palette and complexity’ without knowing why.
In logo, you want a unique silhouette that can be reproduced agnostic to color, but because it will often be printed at high quality and used nearby, they can be FAR more complex than flags.
A flag needs to be identifiable as itself:
When upside down
When moving in wind
When sunbleached
At huge distances
In bad weather
With different dye
With different fabric
If your flag doesn’t work on the flag weather tester website, it’s a bad goddamn flag.
https://loderunner.github.io/flagwaver/
Whatever genius realized that while today’s dye market is more forgiving than 1981’s, but still wouldn’t support TWO EACH of orange and pink (the rarest and most obnoxious to work with colors) and pushed for a tricolore for the “lesbian flag” is a good person, I love them even in spite of my long preference for the labrys flag.
As far as the proposals: all the corporate ones are useless. The one with the off centered triangle on the hoist is by far the best, but it’s all terrible.
Of the common ones, I tend to use the pi flag because Straighties already slapped us out of queering all the other greekish things we were associated with, and spite fuels my gnashing teeth.
But truth be told I like the infinity heart best. It is simple, evocative, easy to sew, easy to print, gives the flag clear directionality, and so on.
The triple heart alt seems like a good secondary design for situations where the infinity heart is not as readily feasible, such as when using buttons to make art.
[Image description: Image 1 is the heart continuum flag from above. It has a large yellow curved stripe, and then thinner curved stripes in red, light purple, dark purple, and a very dark purple.
Image 2 is a can of Paulaner Spezi, a brand of cola-fanta mix with a design that looks almost exactly the same as the flag rotated 90 degrees. End description.]
lmao at the inherent hubris of a committee of influencers holding a vote for a pride flag on a website that looks and sounds like it’s pitching a tech startup. The proposed flags look like pharmaceutical logos.
They (and the vote) are on the polyamproud website. I don’t want to discourage anybody from actually voting if they genuinely like any of the designs, but I am wildly skeptical that the creation of a website will be what achieves widespread acceptance and recognition of a community symbol.
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
My unsolicited opinions on the flags are:
Tricolor: It’s Fine I Guess. I find this one the most acceptable of the bunch but I dislike the jewel tones. The asymmetrical chevron feels unwarranted; I think it would better if the heart were centered fesswise.
Tetracor: I don’t trust this one. This flag is trying to sell me something. Looks like the logo of an insurance company with an app. Jewel tones again.
Wide Band: Meaningless. Forgettable. Looks like a blanket I would put on a horse. Five colors is too many for a flag, especially one that’s just horizontal bars.
Heart Continuum: Look I’m not against curves on flags or otherwise but this flag is a vexillogical mistake. Three different shades of purple next to each other? Seriously? What the fuck is that little triangle in the corner trying to accomplish. This should have been three colors at most.
In addition, I find the website to be unforgivably smug. Maybe this makes me a curmudgeon and a hater for criticizing what might be a good faith effort and not just an attempt to promote their podcast and patreon. I just think that if you want to design a community flag, you should release it into the wild and see if it survives, like nature intended.
*looks at the first flag with the topic “polyamory” in mind*
*gets an Association for the off-centre chevron and looks dubious-to-disgusted*
So the blue stripe is the man of the main couple, the pink stripe is the woman of the main couple, and the violet stripe is the additional lesser partner they brought in to spice things up? Is that what they were thinking?
As for the chevron, I don’t know and I probably don’t want to know.
But as for the rest, there is actually a reason for the color choice, and it’s that it’s based on the original polyamorous flag designed in 1995 by Jim Evans. Its blue, red, and black bars represent honesty, love, and solidarity. The pi symbol, now widely criticized for being too obscure, was intended to be a reference that only fellow polyamorous people would get.
The reason this flag is such an eyeburner is that it was made in MS Paint at a time when most computers had an 8 bit color palette. These were the only color choices ole Jim had to work with in 1995:
I remember these days. It was a simpler time.
But if there is one lesson I would like to impress upon contemporary flag designers it’s that flag color choices must be broad. They should never involve hex codes or require the eyedropper tool to reproduce to a recognizable degree. The average person should be able to recreate a flag’s design with the 8-crayon box of crayolas.
And honestly, strictly as a print or fabric reproduction, the original flag doesn’t look terrible! But these days, most people are going to encounter pride flags on a screen much more often than they’re going to encounter them in print or as a physical flag. So for literal decades people have been tweaking the original flag’s colors to make them more appealing on-screen.
That’s more or less how we arrived at the current infinity heart that remains popular.
ALT
ALT
I would’ve made the black bar wider for aesthetic reasons, but because flag designs should be broad enough to be recognizable when tweaked, I could just do that without announcing that I’d redesigned the flag. It would still be the same flag.
And guess what!!! Polyamorists have voted on a flag before! In 2019, an organization declared THIS the “new official polyamory pride flag.”
ALT
But I think PolyamProud did really nail it with one thing, and that’s the Polyamory Flag Redesign Cycle. This is exactly what I think is going to happen when a NEW official polyamory flag is announced.
ALT
And why I think you should just use whatever flag you want.
Frustrated to see this go around without the explanation for why the original flag is Like That. Yes, I agree, it’s hard on the eyes! You can desaturate the colors without declaring it a new flag because that’s how flags work!!!
ALT
ALT
These flags are nonstandard but they are both still recognizable despite being color shifted. The way anything looks on a screen will differ from one screen or browser or operating system to the next, and it will look radically different in physical media. So it is truly not a big deal to shift the colors a little.
Anyway if so many people apparently hate the infinity heart so much I don’t know why they didn’t just do, like, this:
ALT
Flags are made up and you can do whatever you want with them forever! Use this one if you want to, I don’t care!!! If you don’t like something about it then change it!!!! I love flags and I hate discourse!!!!!!
A huge issue I have with most “pride flags” invented in the last ten years comes down to this obsession with color parity that makes no sense for a FLAG.
People treat flag design like logo design because they hear ‘limited palette and complexity’ without knowing why.
In logo, you want a unique silhouette that can be reproduced agnostic to color, but because it will often be printed at high quality and used nearby, they can be FAR more complex than flags.
A flag needs to be identifiable as itself:
When upside down
When moving in wind
When sunbleached
At huge distances
In bad weather
With different dye
With different fabric
If your flag doesn’t work on the flag weather tester website, it’s a bad goddamn flag.
https://loderunner.github.io/flagwaver/
Whatever genius realized that while today’s dye market is more forgiving than 1981’s, but still wouldn’t support TWO EACH of orange and pink (the rarest and most obnoxious to work with colors) and pushed for a tricolore for the “lesbian flag” is a good person, I love them even in spite of my long preference for the labrys flag.
As far as the proposals: all the corporate ones are useless. The one with the off centered triangle on the hoist is by far the best, but it’s all terrible.
Of the common ones, I tend to use the pi flag because Straighties already slapped us out of queering all the other greekish things we were associated with, and spite fuels my gnashing teeth.
But truth be told I like the infinity heart best. It is simple, evocative, easy to sew, easy to print, gives the flag clear directionality, and so on.
The triple heart alt seems like a good secondary design for situations where the infinity heart is not as readily feasible, such as when using buttons to make art.
[Image description: Image 1 is the heart continuum flag from above. It has a large yellow curved stripe, and then thinner curved stripes in red, light purple, dark purple, and a very dark purple.
Image 2 is a can of Paulaner Spezi, a brand of cola-fanta mix with a design that looks almost exactly the same as the flag rotated 90 degrees. End description.]
"The Mirror, the Window", "For All the Foxes I May Ever", & "Little Heart Stop" are three new poems by FΘxfΔble& [pt: Foxfables] that touch upon navigating life, death, and personal relationships as an alterhuman🦊 read them now on our website:
"The Mirror, the Window", "For All the Foxes I May Ever", & "Little Heart Stop"
