Fox Feathers

Talon Ironwood | Adult-Bodied | Plural | Therian | Otherkin | Multiple Nonhuman Alters and Headmates

[ironwoodwolves]

Back Into the Fray

Hello! I'm Talon Ironwood, but some folks might know me as RowanWolf. I've recently moved away from that name, but it was what I was called in the alterhuman community there for a while.

EDIT: On the subject of the blog name, we've opted to change our URL from "talonironwood" (our collective name) to "ironwoodwolves," in a shift back towards our original presence in the alterhuman community. Roughly half the sysmates are some sort of canid, so it does feel appropriate.

I've got a bit more about me as well as some rules and a BYF under the cut.

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Name: Talon Ironwood Body Age: 30s Alterhuman Type: Plural system

Who will be posting here and how they identify:

🌊 : For undifferentiated posts

🎵 : Canadian timber wolf and African golden wolf therian, coastal gryphonkin, kitsunekin, hylapaslink, crowkith, ravenkith, red-tailed hawkhearted, system host.

🔥 : Royal wolf therian, caninehearted, fictish

🐺 : Royal wolf, fictish

💎 : Fictive, demon, fictionkin

🦌 : Fictive, demon

🐉 : Fictive

⚔️ : Fictive, Gideon Nav synpath

🌕 : Harpy extranth, night skykin, starhearted

🦊 : Anthropomorphic fox extranth

🍻 : Fictive, demon

🍒 : Coyote extranth

🪩 : Anthropomorphic "sparklehound" extranth, hellhound estoritive

🚬 : Fictive, hellhound

☄️ : Fictive, demon, starkith

♠️ : Fictive, demon

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Rules:

Be kind. To me, to each other, to anybody you encounter here, to any of the sysmates who may choose to post...

This is not an RP blog. No one posting here is roleplaying. Don't treat it as an RP blog.

Don't try to dictate how others eat. It's a thing I've seen before in this community. Do what you want as far as self-imposed dietary restrictions, but leave others be.

In this house we love and respect otherlinkers.

I would appreciate if you not send me DMs if you're bodily under 18. Please do not follow me if you're under 16. I'm not terribly comfortable with kids and tend to prefer adult-only spaces.

If you're here, you're agreeing to abide by this list and that you have read our BYF. We will block those who violate this.

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BYF:

We are all in some way alterhuman beyond just our plurality and we support all good-faith alterhuman identities. This includes otherlinkers and good-faith factkin.

We will block KFFers and "kinnies." These are different from things like funlinks. KFFers are anti-kin and spread misinformation about alterhumans and we will not tolerate them here. This is a blog regarding actual identities.

This is a safe space for systems of all types and origins and we will block fakeclaimers. Fakeclaimers DOES include anti-endos, for reasons obvious to anyone with common sense.

We are uncomfortable with nonconsesual paraphilias. If you are non-contact, you're welcome to like, reblog, comment, follow, and send asks, we just ask that you don't send DMs if discussion of your paraphilias is the majority of your blogs content.

THOUGHT CRIMES AREN'T REAL, DON'T ACT LIKE THEY ARE.

We oppose r*dqueers and transIDs. Pursuant to that, we do NOT consider "transspecies" to be a r*dqueer term, as it has been in use in the alterhuman community since the 1990s, far longer than the r*dqueer movement has existed.

We are opposed to anyone who promotes violence and/or hatred against any group just trying to live their lives and we will block you if you do this.

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Credits:

I suck at making any kind of graphics or dividers. If I did make something, I'll state it, but otherwise any graphics and dividers I use can be found below:

Divider credits

Graphic credits

[rivershyperfixations]

I know this has been said before but a lot of you are pissing me off so I'm going to say it again.

Being alterhuman does not mean you have some ~special ability~ to interact with wild animals.

DO NOT go touching/chasing/ generally messing with wildlife. You aren't special and you could harm those animals, or be harmed by them. Even small things like bugs can kill you. You aren't immune to rabies.

If you scare wild animals by chasing them for species euphoria or whatever, you can genuinly kill them. Birders have a term for when it happens to birds, its called a Dread Flight. When you unnecessarily scare a wild animal, you are causing it to waste energy it needs to survive. Wildlife can't afford to waste energy. You're enjoyment is NEVER worth disturbing wildlife.

You do not have the training to rescue wild animals just because you're alterhuman. If you don't have the actual training to resue wildlife and you genuinely find an animal in need of help, CALL A FUCKING WILDLIFE REHABILITATION CENTER!!!! It isn't that hard to find the number for your local center and they'll tell you what to do, if anything, and help you if necessary.

I'm so sick of seeing alterhumans online think they can interact with wildife willy nilly just because they're alterhuman. Please fucking stop.

[sundragon]

I don't know where else to go to say this, but the alterhuman community as of late feels unsafe to be in because of the rise in p shifter content. Some people on here are saying that you can't call yourself an alterhuman if you're anti physical shifter, or you're a hypocrite. What I get afraid of is if I put "p shifters dni" in my blog, I would be raided by an angry mob that's all pissy that I don't conform to what they want me to think.

I see some irony from p shifters when it comes to subjective vs objective reality. One moment they're saying that consensus reality shouldn't be forced and people can live in their own different realities. Another moment, they claim that physical shifting is objectively real in shared reality, and that anyone who says it isn't real is either lying or don't know any better. Hmm... Saying that p shifting is objectively real surely does look like a form of forcing consensus reality.

That reminds me of how evangelicals get all pissy when an atheist, or someone of another belief system, says that they don't also believe what the evangelicals believe.

I really am getting a "you must believe in what I believe in and if you don't you're a horrible person" vibe from p shifters.

I admit I haven't been lurking in the main tag much for some weeks/months but I believe it, lol. It might seem like a huge problem from here, but if you can get enough folks blocked you should be okay. It's just tumblr, and pshifters are nothing new under the sun. Don't give them attention and they have no incentive to interact with you.

I encourage you to set whatever boundaries you need! DNIs aren't flawless, I find it more effective to just block frequently and focus on people who don't set you off, but if it helps you, then do it. If it makes you feel better, no one's come after me, and I've been somewhat outspoken about how uncomfortable the whole thing makes me. I keep my paws firmly on the ground of consensus reality, with an eye towards the sky for possibilities that contradict it. If I spot one, I examine it, and if it's verifiably nonsense like pshifting is, I toss it. We used to hold onto some really toxic magical thinking, and our whole system is STILL dealing with that. All embracing it did was make us need anti psychotic medication.

In a way, we all live in our own bubbles of reality that are unique, just by existing as separate organisms. But anyone who has a fit that their reality isn't immediately accepted by others needs to get a grip. Excluding actual acts of bigotry and violence, it doesn't matter what other people think, and pshifters are some of the most insecure people I've unfortunately met on the net. You would think literal shapeshifters would have better things to do than harass people online.

Again, speak your mind and set your boundaries and don't worry too much about what anyone else says. As long as you aren't going out of your way to attack anyone, you're not doing anything wrong. The nice thing is that insecure people (generally) don't bother folks who are clearly secure in who they are and what they say. They want targets who will get their hackles up and argue and fight back so they can get the adrenaline rush from a fight and some social media clout. If you're just chilling and keeping your virtual space tidy, you're a lousy target indeed!

[sundragon]

Also like... it's no worse than when I block outspoken Christians here. To me they're equally bullshit and I don't want it around me because at best it's just useless noise, at worst it's actively harmful to my mental health. I'm an atheist and I can confirm the comparison you're making, it's pretty blatant. If they wouldn't get mad at you for saying Evangelicals DNI, then they shouldn't get mad for saying pshifters DNI. I've encountered Christian alterhumans, and excluding them from my space doesn't somehow make me not a dragon. Likewise, excluding pshifters from my space doesn't make me not a dragon. They're just incapable of dealing with any amount of discomfort and that is not your problem! You aren't a therapist! They need to either log off, or learn to deal with shit that makes them uncomfortable like the rest of us lmao.

[nocturnal-stims]

Flexible feather armor

🪽 Miscreations_us on IG

[kitten-of-bast]

Human kids should be allowed to act like animals even if it turns out they aren't actually therianthropes. Let the kids connect with their bodies and move in ways that aren't so restricted.

[beadyeyes]

[a-minke-whales-tale]

How Wolfy is the Nonhuman Community?

It is something that is quite often repeated in therian spaces is the abundance of wolves in particular. Rather than doing the methode where a bunch of species are listed I am curious how close the community on average is to wolf.

Please select the closest common clade. If you do not have a nonhuman identity, please select the bottom result if you wish to see the results to avoid skewing the information. If you have multiple types select the closest (or most significant depending on your desire). If your type is not classified such as theriomythics, please select the Other option. If the type classification is unclear (i.e. certain ediacaran or similar ancient life) select which you think best fits.

Examples: Minke Whale (balaenoptera acutorostrata) - Mammalia, African Wild Dog (lycaon pictus) - Canidae, Common Tern (sterna hirundo) - Chordata, Pegasus - Mythical: Other, Silver Elf - Non-Terran: Other

How Close to Wolf Are You?

Species: C. Lupus

Genus: Canis

Family: Canidae

Order: Carnivora

Class: Mammalia

Phylum: Chordata

Kingdom: Animalia

Life: Terran

Non-Terran, Non-Life, Non-Classified, Mythic, or Other

Results/I do not identify as non-human

Voting ended onJun 25

Please reblog this to share it further as I am quite curious and would benefit from getting responses beyond my immidiate circle.

[forcewild]

ragebaiting my fellow nonhumans by petting your fur/feathers/scales the wrong way.

[forcewild]

success.

[enchantedbook]

"Three Foxes" by Ludwig Hohlwein, Jugend Magazine, 1900

[frameacloud]

Therianthrope resource masterpost

This is a collection of articles, blogs, and more about therianthropes, real people who identify as animals as an integral part of who they are. The following resources come from throughout the community's history, as far back as when the therian community began in the 1990s in a werewolf fandom group. I don't necessarily agree with everything in the links below; instead, I recommend reading them to understand the many different experiences and opinions of therians.

Introductions and definitions

A simple introduction to otherkin and therians, an essay by Orion Scribner

Are you a therian? an article by Strill

Terms and definitions, by Sonne Spiritwind

The experiential nature of therianthropy, by Mokele

Anti-otherkin: A symptom of a greater problem, a lecture by Page Shepard

Therian: Dispelling the earthen animal myth, a community history research essay by Daski

Self discovery

How to determine if you are a therianthrope, a video by Therian Nation (transcript)

Introduction to the newbie's guide, an article by Jakkal

InstaWeres, an article by Katmandu

Shapeshifting

Some therians have experiences in which their thoughts or sensations become more similar to their species of animal for a short time. The therian community was inspired by feeling similar to folklore about animal people and werewolves, so therians call this shapeshifting or shifting, though their bodies don't change.

Types of shift, by Sonne Spiritwind

Debunking the P-shift myth, by Kiera Ember

On cameo shifting, by Strill

Phantom limbs & phantom sensations, human & otherwise, a lecture by Orion Scribner

Spirituality

Therianthropy isn't a religion, though it is spiritual for some therians.

The number one misconception, by SummonerWolf

A theory of misplaced souls, by Yaiolani

Christianity and therianthropy, by Page Shepard

Life and religion, by Kefira

Psychology

Therianthropy isn't a mental illness, though some therians consider it part of a harmless mental difference.

Therianthropy: Wellbeing, schizotypy, and autism in individuals who self-identify as non-human, a peer-reviewed journal article by Helen Clegg, Roz Collings, and Elizabeth C. Roxburgh

"Understanding the otherkin," a magazine article by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, which has an interview with Dr. Jan Dirk Blom about therians

A Comprehensive Introduction to a Psychological View of Therianthropy, an essay by Liesk, about therians who explain their therianthropy as a mental difference rather than as a spiritual belief

"Different" isn't "insane," an essay by Akhila, about how therianthropy is a harmless difference

Large collections of writings and resources

The WereLibrary

Animal Quills

Shifters dot org (archived version)

Project Shift

Bird of a Feather

Therian Wiki

There are 320+ neatly tagged and organized resources by many in the therian section of the Alterhuman Archive

Community

The Werelist, a web forum

Nonhuman National Park, a web forum

Alterdirect, a public directory of Discord servers, which has a list of servers for therians

Therian Webring, a directory of therian web sites

A Timeline of the Therianthrope Community by House of Chimeras

Otherkin News, a blog of current events for therians and other alterhumans

Safety in Alterhuman Spaces, a booklet by the Dragonheart Collective

[intergalacticcollective]

"Therianthropes dont actualy identify as animals, they know their human", my dog ass while reading/hearing that. (the rest of the system is cringing too)

[azrael-corvidae]

IM DONE. IM FINALLY DONE WITH THIS DUMB BIRDS AFTER TWO MONTHS. KINDA MID BUT IDCCCC

[wolveswolves]

By Eddie and Pat Hayden

[batsandboba]

@munnchausenzip i can't lie, it goes hard (x) (x)

[alterhuman-positivity]

You don't need to do anything in particular to be a therian or otherkin except just having that identity. You don't need to do quads. You don't need gear. You don't need to have a pack. You don't need to be able to draw your kintype. You don't need to have shifts often or at all. You don't need to make animal vocals. You don't need anything other than identifying as your kintype. You can do whatever you want with that identity, and it doesn't have to align with what the community likes to do with theirs.

[tiercelgreen]

I am on my paws and knees begging folks to realize they don't have to be the world's most amazing writer ever to write! The alterhuman tags have been feeling really devoid and empty of a lot of the usual interesting essays lately and that makes me really sad! I love it when you all write! I love reading about the experiences of people! You also don't have to be interesting to write about yourself. Most people, I find, view themselves to be quite boring and are more fascinated with the lives of others. The reality of this is that you think you're boring because you've lived with yourself/selves your entire life! Of course you're going to seem mundane to yourself. But the secret is, nobody else is you. And no matter how utterly boring you find yourself or your thoughts or your particular relation to the alterhuman community I can assure you, you are interesting to others out there. Your voice DOES matter. Your thoughts and experiences DO have value. You ARE valuable. So please, please write. Please draw. Please share your experiences through literally whatever form you possibly can! I LOVE to read about everyone's unique experiences. Some of my favourite essays and writings out there have been from people who are so entirely and vastly different from myself that I could never have even conceived of the way they viewed things and how they experienced the world around them until I read about their experiences. Some of my favourite artworks are from people who's styles and preferences are wholly different from my own. I promise you, you do not have to be talented or skilled or amazing or perfect to create something of meaning and worth that revolves around your experience. Whether that be a handful of sentences attempting to verbalize a way you felt during a shift, or a several thousand word essay on your particular experience as a spiritual therian. Whether that be a simple pen scribble or a 16+ hour finished piece of work. Whatever it may be. It has meaning because you made it with your own digits with your own hands with your own claws and its yours. Please write.

[paracosmic-gt]

Often find people beg others to write and share their experience, and then complain about "low effort posts". (Not at OP just other posts we've seen). Angry at those people, make me feel bad for not being able to write essays like a philosopher.

Any writing or creation is good! One paragraph or 10, it all makes a difference. Hyperverbal or in shorter words. You are allowed to exist as yourself and don't have to perform that you're an academic or hyper literate.

[ravenfleesfire]

I feel like the online alterhuman community is not immune to rose-colored nostalgia glasses about the state of things in the Good Old Days when alterhumans were Serious and Philosophical. "Nobody takes it seriously anymore" surely has been the case since like 2005 at least

[lizardywizard]

Exaaaactly.

Also people were complaining about Kids Having Fun back in 2005, and it made for joyless spaces back then too. And racist ones, since a knock-on effect was that people who didn't use "correct English" couldn't participate.

I'm not eager to go back to the old days. Neocities is there if you need it, and with much better tagging and search functions than we had back then. You can do what you like in your own spaces! But the community is larger than that now, and a small group of tastemakers no longer own it.

If I were to be uncharitable, I'd say that's what some people are missing.

[creatureheart]

[ID: Screenshot of tags from who-is-page.

Tags read: “#we gotta be real squad the silliness we see now just feels more prevelant because of 1) microblogging platforms #and 2) we're more well known as a community-- which means more kids inevitably in our spaces by default. #and 3) a lot of joins from the furry community (which is a fandom space and has a much sillier culture overall #causing a bit of a culture shift towards art and play. but not in a bad way!! #anyways let ppl have fun it's fine the philosophical spaces are still out there. or turn ur blog into one. follow ur heart #sorry I'm so high but I hope this made sense”

End ID]