[image ID: 2 flags, theyre both horizontal 7 striped. the first one's colors are light purple, lavender, light blue, light green, pastel yellow, light pink and pink. on the middle theres a white circle with a light purple diamond shaped outline on the middle, inside it is the alchemic symbol for bismuth, also light purple in color. the second flag is the same, but the colors are dark rather than pastel. end ID]
alteraffectis or nonhuman attraction
a tertiary attraction umbrella term that human souls simply arent supposed feel, or cant be explained within human terms, coined with alterbeings/alterhumans in mind (I count pet regressors and otherlinks as alterbeings) but I cant police who's using it or not
examples of this could be but isnt limited to:
the way a guardian angel feels about the person/people theyre protecting
the way a patron deity feels about the people theyre a patron to
the way a dog feels about their owner(s)
the feelings a cat has towards their bonded partner(s)
and so much more!!
[image ID: a rainbow glitter text that reads âplease do not reupload anywhere unless credited and informed". end ID]
Petaffectis is a subset of Alteraffectis which describes how a domesticated pet would feel affection towards their owner(s) or human caretakers.
This term was coined with alterhumans, otherkin, pet regressors, copinglinkers and similar in mind.
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[ID: A rectangular flag with 7 equally-sized horizontal lines. Colors are in this order: cream, tan, brown, off-white, black, dark pink, peachy-pink. in the center of the flag is a white circle featuring a brown Alteraffectis symbol. The symbol is a diamond with a small circle centered vertically, slightly above where it would be if it was centered horizontally. Below and connected to the circle is a vertical line. Intersecting slightly above the end of the vertical line is a mirrored number 2, appearing correct on the left side but flipped on the right side. End ID]
Pet+Owner (General) Nichelink: a 16+ rated nichelink relationship/relationship dynamic where one person in the relationship takes the role of a pet, and the other/s take the role of their owner.
i'm not sure how i should rate this. please tell me if you have opinions.
this may include, but isn't limited to:
the owner serving as a caretaker for the pet when they pet regress/have pet thoughts/have kin shifts
the pet getting atypical euphoria from the idea of being a pet
the owner giving the pet training to do tricks, whatever that may mean for the people involved
the pet being an introject/kin/etc of an animal character, and the owner being an introject/kin/etc of that character's ower from their source
the owner being dissopet/another dissodic label, or the pet being dissoconnopet, envicaninsti, envidog or any similar labels
the pet being a recovering r*dqueer and the owner helping them express their want to be "owned" in a risk-aware and safer way
orientation/teritary attraction/alteraffectis attraction like petaffectis, dogbutch4femme, eldritchaffectis, presentation terms like feral/domesticated/stray, etc
nichelink coining page
tagging: @radiomogai | @stormy-caffeine | @a-agere-archive | @dissodic-archive | @sage-thee-herbmaster // ask to be tagged in similar terms or to be untagged
the bell symbol used in the alt flag is by @neopronouns (i believe?)
i know lots of y'all may know this already, but for anyone who's having a rough time with species dysphoria: it's okay if you don't behave a ton like your kintype or kintypes.
recently i heard of a study yale did (here's a link to the info about it I found) that was about how animals respond to the presence of humans. it turns out that even just humans being present can have impacts on how animals behave.
that made me think about species dysphoria in us otherkin folk because of course we wouldn't act exactly like our kintypes, our circumstances and environments are different.
we're stuck in the societal role of being human, so of course we wouldn't act exactly like our kintypes. there's also the fact that some behaviors, even in animals like cats, are influenced by upbringing. being raised by humans in a human society is gonna affect us, even if we don't want it to.
these circumstances don't make our identities any less valid. we are the creatures we are despite the roadblocks we face. this post is just here to say that the roadblocks are there and that struggling due to them does not affect the validity of your identity.
This might be kind of a hot take but I feel like the community has shifted away from identifying as animals to identifying with animals. I'm not a big fan of how many folks don't understand their own species behavior or know a lot about their species, it has led to me feeling very isolated around other canines due to how many of them don't present their species behavior (or even understand a single thing about how packs or canine behavior even works)
This is just my own personal take, but it feels weird to try to socialize with most folks in the community because most of the time its seen as "taking it too far" when you actually act as your species. (coughcough wolves are not friendly social creatures to strangers and can actually be quite shy, and growling is not always a form of aggression, on a similar note a wagging tail isn't always a sign of friendliness either)
Now, this isn't to say that those who don't show behaviors like their species are "faking it" (because thats a whole load of shit), it just feels like the community has gotten a lot more anthropomorphized (or humanized) from when I first discovered it
I do also feel that many newer therians might not be putting enough thought into what they are. And of course you won't know everything there is to know about an animal, but knowing the basics and how it relate to you could be important to discovering your theriotype. But, like others have said, even suggesting this is seen as rude in the eyes of many. And in some places in the community, therianthropy is more of an animal esthetic to them. Where the misinfo that therians "don't identify as animals" proliferate, and any correction is met with vitriol and ableism.
But this has the ability to harm unawakend therians with more animalistic urges and experiences who will find almost nothing for them in thoes parts of the community. I know for me, It didn't answer any of my questions. Quads felt good to me but it didn't explain the dysphoria or the way I felt. It took looking for older essays and experiences to figure out I wasn't alone in my feelings. And I know I'm not alone in this.
I've felt it important to continue to push that Therianthropy be and stay as "someone who identifies as an animal" and that, that be an experience that is different for everyone.
I encourage everyone to read this, especially if you are white. I made this post long enough to talk about the points in decent detail, but short enough to be digestible. It is about the different ways the nonhuman communities make people of color feel unwelcome and why.
My askbox is open usually all the time, so I'm also open to answering questions about this. I want people to read. I want people to ask questions when they don't understand. I even want people to do research on their own time to learn more (and I mean actually researching and not asking ChatGPT to think for you).
Where To Begin
"Wow, this is a really long post on the police dog discourse", except this isn't a post on the police dog discourse. That topic is more of a springboard for me to segue into where exactly things go wrong and how it causes people of color to feel unsafe participating in the communities (which can suck, because nonhumanity can be very isolating with no one to talk to about it!). So if you feel as if this has been done to death and are thinking "oh boy, this again", I encourage you to continue to read the post all the way to the end. With that, this leads us to...
The Dilution of Topics
It's important to understand that when something like this comes up, POC are chiming in to explain the situation and how it affects them. It is not the time to bring in unrelated things in an attempt to use that as credentials for weighing in. I'll use the K-9/police dog example again because it's honestly such a good discourse to dissect for this. The main focus of the conversation was between black and brown people (not exclusively, because other POC included, but mainly) and those who identify as police/military dogs (therians, otherkin, whathaveyou). Not anyone else.
"As someone with a problematic (or villain) kintype--"
This isn't about you.
"I'm police or military creature from another world--"
This isn't about you.
"I acknowledge it but don't glorify it--"
This isn't about you.
What these comments do is not only watering down what our actual concerns are, but it speeds up the "internet telephone" until the conversation morphs into something different entirely. This happens all the time when people of color try to bring to light something that bothers us. Everyone wants to make it about themselves but it's not about everyone. The topic of "Glorification of these institutions that actively harm isn't good" is not the same as "What kintypes/theriotypes/etc. should people be allowed to have?", but it was turned into that very quickly because way too many people failed to realize and understand what isn't about them. Many, with a quickness, found a way to victimize themselves.
All that is without even getting into people adding exclusions that were not originally there. "This discourse is US-centric and doesn't apply to other countries" is not only incorrect but you need to educate yourself on how police brutality (and police brutality that utilizes attack animals) exists outside of the United States. This isn't even just for the dog thing. This also extends to racism in general because people love to talk about how not racist their country is (when in fact it often is).
White Privilege and Nonhuman Superiority
This section is probably going to ruffle some feathers, but if it does ruffle your feathers then it might be time to start deconstructing why exactly that is. White privilege in particular is important to point out here because it is common to assume that privilege is a "balance scale". Privilege doesn't cancel out from marginalization. You can be queer, or disabled, or neurodivergent, etc. and still benefit from white privilege. I point all of that out because the nonhuman communities have a large portion that are in one or many of these marginalized groups, and the assumption that it "cancels out" white privilege may be part of the driving force behind what's covered in this post.
An easy starting example of white people underestimating exactly how deep things can go is the entire gatekeeping discourse about defining therianthropy as "wears gear and does quadrobics". How this whole thing started with people insisting therianthropy required these performative aspects, I'm not even gonna pretend to know. What I do know is that it is a form of gatekeeping popular on photo and video-based social media websites like Instagram and TikTok that then subsequently bleeds over into other places like Tumblr and Discord group chats.
"Real therians wear gear and run around outside on all fours" makes me desperately hope for young POC to be careful. Black people especially have a disproportionately higher chance of being arrested or shot. I never want anyone to be pressured to do dangerous things from these imaginary guidelines on what makes nonhumanity "valid". It's exclusionary from both a "therianthropy doesn't require any of this" standpoint and a "you are overestimating how safe this activity is to do" standpoint. This isn't fearmongering, I'm not saying that this is never safe. I'm saying that those who are unable to safely do it may subsequently feel like that disqualifies them from identifying as a therian. Similar things can be said for other minorities other than racial ones, but that's a different topic (and I encourage anyone wanting to talk about that to make their own posts about it, rather than using this one).
The insistence that nonhumanity should have "racial colorblindness" and "be above politics/apolitical" are also very privileged takes. Identifying as nonhuman doesn't erase the fact that most of us still live in and are affected by human society (whether some want to be or not) and people of color especially do not have the freedom to completely divorce ourselves from the world because our very existence has been made political. Not only that, but culture is still important to a lot of people as well. We are not all the same just because we identify as nonhuman. We are not a monoculture. We are different and there needs to be room to celebrate that.
The aspect of "everything is for everyone" that often comes with white privilege appears in even blatant ways. I've witnessed people in the community saying that closed cultures are silly. Although slightly less common today (and by slightly I mean very slightly), at one point it was common for people to constantly appropriate North/South American indigenous cultures because their understanding of it was as shallow and stereotypical as "Pocahontas Colors of the Wind". I've even had someone say "well it's not our fault black people are so trendy" directly in a conversation about how black people regularly have our culture taken from us when we're barely even allowed to have it ourselves without being looked down on. It's gross and insensitive, and the very reason so many people of color leave these nonhuman communities. "Do whatever you want forever" exists within reason.
Identifying as nonhuman isn't an excuse to look down on humans either, especially in the misanthropic sense. Being anti-human and blaming humanity as a whole for the results of colonization (species extinction, habitat loss, climate change, etc.) goes against the marginalized people that have been harmed historically and currently and lumps them into the same category as their oppressors simply by existing.
It is Always That Deep
The last point that I'll use to close this whole post is that I can't stress enough how often us POC are told again and again and again that what we are seeing is either not real or irrational, or "just drama".
I remember the reaction to "maybe don't say you're an entity from a closed culture if you're not from that culture".
I remember the reaction to "don't use monkey/ape as a derogatory term for humans".
I remember the reaction to "don't glorify institutions that actively harm and kill us".
I remember the reaction to "please don't say dehumanization is good actually".
People will fight tooth and nail to speak over and ignore POC voices almost as a knee-jerk reaction. Then maybe if we're lucky, after they're done arguing, they'll do some research and come back later with an "oops my bad". I'm glad they learn in those cases, but that's not acceptable. Listening first is important, ask questions (respectfully) if you have to, but it should not be a fight-or-flight situation.
Sick of seeing posts about how awful humans are and how much they're destroying the environment. His name is capitalist georg. Capitalist georg is who you're mad at. You are not mad at the average human you are mad at capitalist georg. Humans are fully capable to be just as good as any other animal. Capitalist georg does not count.
Once you stop defining your therianthropy in measures of dysphoria and focus on what brings you fulfillment as an animal, you start caring a lot less about where other people fall on the chosen kintype vs involuntary kintype axis. It opens you up to start caring about how people engage with their kintype, and what experiences it brings instead, which I think are far more valuable.
Reminder that there's nothing wrong with having a reason for being a therian/connection with your therianthropy.
It's ok if your a cat because you were raised with cats so you identify as one now.
It's ok if your a wolf because they're your special interest to the point you identify as a wolf.
It's ok if your a fox because you believe you had a past life as a fox so you identify as a fox now in this life.
And it's ok if you don't have a reason. If you just are, even if you don't fit the "normal criteria" of therianthropy, if your identify as an animal involuntarily you are a therian and you deserve just as much respect in the community as anyone else.
i wish there were terms for pet/owner relationships involving creatures like us that were completely separate from romance or sex.
i want a way to easily and quickly communicate "I'm otherkin and want a pet/owner sort of dynamic with a queerplatonic partner."
the term wouldn't even necessarily have to communicate the otherkin part, the important parts are the dynamic and the fact that the relationship isn't romantic or sexual.
so far, the only term I have found that comes close to describing what i want is 'nonsexual pet play' but that's very much an imperfect term when it comes to what I want.
i want to be treated like a pet in a very gentle and loving way. if it would be seen as abusive if done to a pet, then it isn't a regular part of the dynamic i want.
i have respect for kink communities, but trying to find people I relate to using those labels hasn't worked for me. most people who are into pet play are into other kinks that make their wants completely different from mine. for example, i'm not into punishments. like actual pets, positive reinforcement works best for me.
also, while i'd want the dynamic I'm in to be kind of a power dynamic, the main point of it wouldn't be dominance or submission type stuff. one of the reasons i want to find a term to use for this that isn't a kink term is because i want to be able to explain what i want to people without their minds quickly going to intense Dom/sub stuff.
if anyone knows of terms that are at least similar to what i'm looking for, that'd be awesome. even if ya don't know of anything, i'd love to know if anyone around here relates to these odd yearnings of mine.
The therian and otherkin communities really do harbour a lot of unexamined racism.
And I understand why. For many of us, our identities are inherently based in wanting to be seen, treated, as something other than human. We're often eager to disavow humanity, having spent so long being forced into that role, and so we embrace ideas of dehumanisation. But we don't often consider that alterhumans of colour, who have long histories of being treated as subhuman and having their humanity denied, might have more complex relationships with these narratives.
As a community in the internet age, we have the myths and legends of the whole world at our fingertips. But we often give very little care to the meanings of those myths and the cultures they come from. (Are you actually a human possessed by an Algonquin spirit of starvation, after falling prey to greed and the exploitation of other people? Or are you a woods monster with a skull-deer head? Because the former is not the latter, and if you actually are the former, a lot of Native Americans are going to be rightfully upset by you, as that spirit represents immense amounts of cruelty that was done to them and is still being done to them.)
And then there are the myths and legends that are explicitly tied to racism. The New Age narrative of starseeds and ancient alien ancestors originates in white supremacy (we never see Black alien progenitors, but we do see explicitly "Nordic" ones), antisemitism (anything to do with the world being secretly run by alien lizardfolk, which have widely been understood by Jewish scholars as code for the Jews), and literal Nazi occult practices. While some starseeds disavow racism, disavowing it personally is not enough- not when the community continues to circulate white supremacist beliefs.
And then of course there's the police dog thing. No, it doesn't make you evil to have been a police dog, or to have enjoyed having been one. No one can expect you to have understood racism as a dog. But you have this body and mind now, you are aware of racism now, and you are aware of the baseless cruelty of the police, the countless Black and Brown communities that have been terrorised by the police and K9 units. You have the choice to keep condoning this system, or to learn about it and the harm it does. Perhaps that's what you're meant to do as a dog in this life- perhaps that's why you're here, why you've been given this mind and this awareness in this current time. To become a better, more compassionate being than you were in the past.
This isn't to say you're not a dog who served the police, or a kitsune, or an alien from the Pleiades, or an animal who enjoys dehumanisation. (I'm that last one myself!) But we have to understand that when we talk about these things uncritically, when we're wilfully ignorant and don't do the research or care about how these ideas might make people of colour feel, we are driving said people away from the community and making it a very, very white space.
One of my irrational irritants within the alterhuman community is treating humans like they arenât animals or creatures
The idea that humans arenât animals is a uniquely human ideology & itâs not one i subscribe to; humans are animals. The separation of humans & the concept of humanity from animals has caused many many issues; more harm than good id argue
I can't believe that I have to make this post but; song/musickin, fictionkin, "common"kin, linkers, anthrokin, physical alterhumanity and every form non-humanity are valid, all of y'all creatures and others are in the same community, our whole thing is "if it doesn't hurt anyone or anything it's okay" full stop. stop arguing, stop gatekeeping, stop shaming others, stop bullying others. "But they think alterhumanity is physicalđ„ș" they don't think, for them, it is. "They can't identify as a song/object/etcđĄ" yes they can, it's they're identity, it's who they are, you have no say. I personally am not in that side of the community but it doesn't take a genius to know this stuff. So I'll say it again, stop arguing, stop gatekeeping, stop shaming others, stop bullying others.
this might be a dumb question but domestic cat alterhumans: do you identify more as an indoor cat or an outdoor cat? Both? Does it depend? If you're a poly-alterhuman (?) with more than one cat identity can you tell if one is a feral cat and one is a beloved pet?
I know I've always identified with wild sables bc there's not really a 'housepet' version of a sable except in rare circumstances.
also other domestic animal alterhumans you can weigh in too bc I am insanely curious about this experience tbh :3
i'm an indoor cat. walks in the park and hikes are awesome, but i wouldn't wanna live outdoors. also, the thought of always having humans around to help me feels great but idk if that's a nonhuman thing or just my mental illness telling me i can't be independent.
