Introject-heavy mixed-origin median system. alterhuman. Host Doxion (she/her they/them), cohost virgil (he/him) (fictive from sanders sides). body age 27
Welcome to the January 2026 Fictionfolk Census! Through this survey, we're looking to see what sources are most common in the fictionfolk community. This survey is open to all who identify as being fictionfolk.
Welcome to the January 2026 Fictionfolk Census! Through this survey, we're looking to see what sources are most common in the fictionfolk co
All you have to do for each response is tell us the name of your source! No extra information needed. From these results, I will be examining:
What sources seem to be the most represented in the community?
What type of media seems to be the most prevalent in the community? (live action, video games, animation, film, television, etc.)
Does a certain media's popularity correspond to the amount of fictionfolk who have it as a source?
The survey will end 2/15/2026, and results will be posted on @fictionfolklore. (though the survey may be extended based on the amount of data collected) After the survey ends, I will try my best to get the results out in a timely manner (i anticipate a large range of data to look through, however).
further response information:
1. Do not add character names. Just sources.
❌ Cinnamoroll - Sanrio
⭕ Sanrio
2. One source per submission, please! This form accepts multiple responses, so please refresh and submit each source separately.
❌ Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Digimon, The Amazing Digital Circus
⭕ Percy Jackson and the Olympians
⭕ Digimon
⭕ The Amazing Digital Circus
3. For the sake of this poll, systems should respond as one source per body, regardless of how many headmates identify with that source. This goes the same for those with multiple kintypes from the same source.
Both myself and another headmate are kin from Pokemon. I am kin with two Pokemon, they are kin with one. Despite having three Pokemon kintypes between us, we would submit Pokemon one time. This is to prevent the possibility of an extremely niche source being overrepresented by a single body.
4. OC folk are welcome to respond! If you are a completely original character, just writing "OC" is enough. If you are from a preexisting source (ex: a Demon Slayer OC, a noncanon Demon Slayer character) then you should put the source itself. (in this case, you'd just respond "Demon Slayer")
If there are any other questions that come up, I will add to this post and update the explanation on the form!
to be honest any discourse ever in the wider trans community on tumblr makes me wanna go "ok now what about systems. how do systems fit into this wonderful categorization you've got going on. you don't know any systems, you say? think long and hard about why that is. really. sincerely"
#REAL
#also not just trans discourse tbh. any qieer discourse
#queer* #like y'know the mspec lesbian discourse?
#completely fails to take into account plural experiences
OH OKAY IF YOU'RE BRINGING MY TAGS HERE I WILL ELABORATE!!!
i actually made a post alluding to this, but something about the mspec lesbian discourse that always interested me was how often i saw systems being pro mspec lesbian compared to singlets, who were more frequently against them. more specifically — it interested me to see how many systems (ours included) heavily benefited from the label due to the complexities of attraction and gender that comes with being plural, and how many singlets just never considered this to be a possibility.
queer singlets tend to have this mindset that your queerness needs to be "clear cut" in a way that often erases plural experiences from the equation — because plurality, suprise suprise, can cause many complications when it comes to identity. singlets want your identity to be chopped down in a way which is palatable and easy for them to digest — any sort of complexity which would require them to stop and try to understand experiences aside from their own is something they tend to be heavily against.
And those things - plurality and nonhumanity - can overlap in unusual ways.
"Mspec lesbian" is actually a fairly good catch-all for how our system ends up on the scale! But personally, I'm a dragon. I'm aroace and have non-human and non-normative transition goals. I'm also the "core" of the system, or one of them. People don't expect a non-human headmate to be one of the ones born here, or to have such strong feelings about transitioning.
I've changed this body to be more masculinised (top surgery, some T) because that aligns with my nonhuman feelings. But there are also a fair number of humans and humanoids who are also heavy fronters. If I continued to change the body in the few limited ways that I can (I really want blue skin, for example), I'd be making them uncomfortable.
Many of said headmates are also fem-aligned in some way, and have a range of feelings on our top surgery and the inroads we've made into transition. For those of us who have some attachment to girl/womanhood but lean more towards multigender, lesboy, mspec, etc., or for those with less mammalian body plans, it's fine and even welcomed. But for the more human-fem-aligned of us, it creates a strange experience where even though we're afab and can pass as a woman, we still feel dysphoric about the body. We're not laying claim to the transfeminine experience, but there's something there that simply calling us transmasc doesn't cover.
Because of all this, we present as fairly androgynous. We can't have the body reflect all of our genders and identities, or even strongly reflect one of them without causing dysphoria for others, so we settle on something in between that we can dress up as we like. We've noticed a lot of other systems have similar presentations; we've known a handful whose headmates all align strongly enough to one binary gender that they could transition, and a handful who stuck with the body's agab, but the majority of other systems we've met in person have cultivated an ambiguous look for this reason.
Needless to say, this isn't something that goes down very well in the larger trans community, which is still incredibly binarist/exorsexist and demands you have an unchanging, singular relationship with oppression and gender.
I think systems are also really important to note under the category of "detransitioning"!
For a while we were pursuing a more binary-aligned masculine transition path. We stopped doing that when we decided we wanted to try and have a different main fronter.
From the outside, what we did - transitioning up to a certain point, then stopping, seeming unsure, using different feminine names - looks like detransitioning. In actuality, it was just different people taking the collective body and life in different directions.
[image ID: Screenshot of tags reading: yes yes yes # and if you're a nonhuman system people lose their fucking minds # I'm a dog and people are insisting I hold privilege over them in the binary they're forcing me into but # and I can't emphasize this enough I am not a human with a binary gender I am a trans dog with non-normative transition goals #woof woof bark bark baby! if I make you uncomfortable then good! die mad! # I am not binary in any form and neither are the other ppl in this system! that's life! it's complicated! # Stop shoving me into binaries that don't apply to my real lives experiences just so you can have Hot Takes about me! End ID.]
Oh yeah, our existence is a Controversial Topic Of Endless Bad Faith Arguments on here. We're a transfem and two trans men who live together in one body - obviously, our lives are affected by this! We can pretend that it's not and act like we're a singlet with a simple queer identity, but that's not actually true!
Honestly, a lot of the problems with Queer Discourse on this site can be boiled down to 1) refusing to believe other people when they tell you about their lives, and 2) believing that anyone with an identity you don't understand is labeling themselves that way to harm you.
"You say you're transfem, but I think you're a filthy liar who's faking your gender for influence and credibility. I think you're actually a fake transfem who's sneaking into our community and stealing our resources while making a disgusting mockery of our oppression. You have no idea what you're talking about, you can't possibly understand the real transfem experience! You live in a trans man's body, it's impossible for you to be transfem!"
There's a lot that we could say in response to this argument, some outpouring of real life experience and trauma and hardship to prove that it's not a joke being played for laughs, but we don't need to bare our souls to angry strangers on the internet looking for a fight.
My main question is just - what kind of incredible power and benefit do you assume anyone would get by pretending to be transfeminine? Why do you think that someone would go through the trouble of pretending to be transgender to prey upon a community of defenseless women?
(Do you see the parallels to the common transmisogynist argument that transfems cannot be who they say they are, because they're just lying predatory men who are mocking real women's oppression by claiming to be women? Something to think about.)
Wait actually, maybe we’ll add something to this too.
We have never really transitioned in any “significant” way. Medical transition is forbidden where we live and social transitioning is impossible at our current living condition, so we live our life as if we’re a cis woman who wears unisex clothes and binds once in a while. We do know Transgender 101 from the internet but because of this background, we often still feel that we’re not “trans enough” for several reasons. Even our trans members feel this way at times.
Our system has cis people and trans people on both sides of the binary, nonbinary people, you name it. Sometimes our gender identity is inseparable from our alterhumanity, often in weird ways (for example, cistransfem werebeast girls. One in particular relates to a ton of transfem experiences even though her gender has always matched the body). Some other times, we just know, for whatever reason, that we’re cis or trans without taking our body into account. We typically only transition in our headspace if we choose to do so, because even something as simple as purchasing a binder or a packer is difficult to do here.
Our cis guys acknowledge that they face basically the same problems as an average transmasc person, but they themselves don’t transition in headspace so they don’t feel that they’re trans. They’ve always been the same gender, they just ended up in the “wrong” body.
Queerness can be very messy in a system in ways that might not be easily digestible to singlets, and this often makes us afraid to talk about it outside of alterhuman spaces because what if people refuse to understand? What if they choose to hate us because it feels “easier” than trying to understand others?
The topic of detransitioning is one we're reluctant to bring up outside of the plural context. Really what happened was more that certain headmates caved under the pressure of people asking us to stop and some were struggling with the changes to our body in a way that worsened our depersonalization. Transitioning was euphoric and we'd like to pursuit it again in the future with a better support network, but with no one understanding our plurality and gender irl it was easier to just stop.
We also have similar experiences to lizardywizard with being androgynous. Outside of plurality it's very difficult to explain willingly transitioning into a gender other than the one you are. This also means headmates who fit our AGAB and are on paper cis still feel trans and trans becomes a collective and personal identity for everyone regardless of technical definitions.
Our sexuality is also impacted by being plural where when fronting we just don't experience romantic or sexual attraction, making us on paper aroace, but we have our own attractions that get experienced in headspace and that is very hard to explain to people.
New additions to the alterhuman pride symbols keychains collection!! Phytanthrope/plantkin, archetrope, conceptkin, objectkin, soulbonding, and dæmonism symbols are available at last ^^
These are also available in wood now btw if anyone's looking 👀
use this "SUPERSECRETCODE" for a special Tumblr discount also!!
Hey, wanna know the ultimate trick to help you explain alterhumanity?
Saying that you "identify" as something can be really, REALLY hard to grasp for a ton of people, so just use a different phrasing with the same meaning!
For example, if you're in a situation were you have to explain your identity to someone who's a bit less open minded, instead of saying
"I identify as a fox"
just say
"I see myself as a fox" or "I feel more like a fox instead of a human"
That has the exact same meaning, but is much easier to understand!
"Yeah, I just kinda see myself as a fox. When I see images of them I kinda go 'hey! That's me!', and doing things a fox would do makes me happy"
Boom. Your chances of being understood just went up by like 80
Hello hello! My name is Syd, and I'm a psychology major doing his senior project on plurality! Plurality is deeply understudied and misunderstood among psychologists, and I want to change that!
If you're plural and willing to help out by lending your time for an interview, you are more than welcome to reach out!! Please send me a dm here, or to my academic email at [email protected] to express your interest or ask any questions!
Reblogs are appreciated to spread the word! Thank you!! 💕
Markiplural ⌥ The alterhuman and plural Markiplier fan discord :)
Hello everybody, welcome to Markiplural! We are a 16+ Markiplier fan server geared around providing a space for alterhumans and plural systems to be themselves. Whether you're sourced from Mark's projects, are a longtime fan, or just curious, all respectful creatures are welcome here!
What we offer:
⤻ Tupper and PluralKit
⤻ Accepting of all system types
⤻ Color roles
⤻ Short verification process
⤻ Markiplier social media feed
⤻ AMA channels
⤻ Roleplay category
⤻ Opt-in NSFW channels for 18+ verified
⤻ Simple fun bots
⤻ Fun activity pings
⤻ No blacklist
⤻ A captain and crew passionate about maintaining a positive space
⤻ +More!
While this is no means an issue exclusive to the physically nonhuman community, that is the community I consider myself a part of, so that will be my focus.
With the steady growth in individuals being open about their physical nonhumanity (holotheres and clinical lycan/zoanthropes included), I think we-as-a-community need to sit down and have a discussion on language in order to nip something in the bud before it gets out of hand:
I don't "identify" as [thing], I am [thing].
This phrasing ^ is something I have seen a lot in an attempt to try and create a difficult-to-word distinction from otherkin and therians and the like. I understand there is no harm meant in this (again, it's a very difficult thing to communicate), but we need to be careful not to stray into common bigoted phrasing to try and describe things. Even if it is completely unintentional, the phrase above still carries the connotation that "identifying" as something is somehow different from being the thing, that they are on some level not ""truly"" what they say they are. We must remember that these are synonyms, you are what you identify as, that's what "identify as" means.
To use a personal example: yes, I identify as a dragon. Because I'm a dragon. If I didn't identify as a dragon then I would say I'm something else. To give it a parallel: I identify as female. Because I am female. If I didn't identify as female then I would say I'm something else. If someone identifies as something then they are that thing, full stop. We risk straying into dangerous territory if we mirror phrasing used against transgender individuals on a regular basis. "I don't identify as, I am" is not only flawed and inaccurate phrasing, but carries poor connotations.
I've made some posts in the past about how I've had some difficulty communicating in many otherkin or therian spaces because me physically being a dragon is sometimes quite different experience-wise (not 100% of the time, but often). It is difficult to phrase "was born a dragon, has always been a dragon and never been anything else" in a way that doesn't imply that non-physical dragons aren't dragons still. Because they are.
But what is a better way to say this then? Do we need wording to create distinctions for those that are perceptibly human and those that are not? Even this isn't so simple, because physical nonhumans that seem human outwardly also exist. That doesn't entirely solve the linguistic gap.
A BIG list of entirely free games therians and alterhumans can get !!! This isn't like an ad for them or anything, but when i was younger i never really had games that fit my theriotypes :( so why not start now!! this is in no real order.
These are all games where you play AS the animal, most of them being semirealistic? They're all free, so they aren't super realistic sorry!!! These are all also games i find on my tablet, so im not sure if they're available on pc!!
Wildcraft: As of today, Wildcraft updates every once and awhile, usually for the Wildpass thing they do almost weekly[? i took a large break from this game, forgive me if im misremembering.] Wildcraft was made by Turbo Rocket Games in early 2018. The multiplayer servers arent as active as they used to be, but it's still fun to play with friends sometimes!! I usually play in singleplayer though!! (Also, there is a settings option to make it first person, and one to hide the buttons!)
Playable Animals: Right now there are 12 land animals: Wolf [Default], Fox [Common], Lynx, Bear, Lion [Rares], Cheetah, Horse, Eagle, Crocodile, Tiger, Gorilla, and Kangaroo! [Ledgendaries], all of which are obtainable through the chests!! There are also 9 transformations [which are more difficult to get !!]: Raccoon, Deer, Hippo, Giraffe, Gazelle, Hyena, Rhino, Parrot, and Snake! There are also 5 Sea creatures: Dolphin [default], Stingray [Rare], Shark, Seal, and Sea turtle! You can have up to eight family members for every animal, who are also customizable! [not including transformations]
Customizability: There are TONS of skins and accessories for every animal, and you can adjust the size of their body parts, making your character entirely customizable! There are also LOTS of pets!
I give it a solid 10/10!! I've loved this game since it came out!! Me and my brother @whisperrdrrop [hii] played it like the year it came out!! I highly recommend playing this one ! >w< The community also has tons of fun creepypastas, and though the only real one is 'Niddhogg,' it's super fun to just learn about them!
Wolf Tales (Home & Heart (IT MIGHT BE 'WILD ANIMAL SIM' NOW IDK)): (The icon may have changed, my ipad doesn't update icons very much!!!) As of Today, Wolf Tales has basically stopped updating from what i can see. However this doesn't take away from the fun of it!! The game was created around 2020 by Foxie Ventures. Servers are multiplayer by default, but there is a singleplayer option!
Playable Animals: There are currently only 5 animals: Wolf, Fox, Bear, Wild/Big cat, and Dragon! All are unlocked by playing through the quests, though you can use moonstones (ingame 'rare' currency) to auto-buy most of them! Your families/packs are grown through opening chests and breeding!
Customizability: There are quite a few skins for every animal, ranging in rarity. you can obtain skins through buying the 'summoning' of the animal you'd like with moonstones and getting a random skin, or buying one directly. Skins are also not changeable! Let's say you're a grey wolf, and you get the sand wolf skin. You would have to enter your den and find that skin, and switch into that one, meaning it could have a different level! There are also LOTS of pets, though i do not remember how to get them. The only way to change your character is through changing limb sizes, there are no accessories!!
I give it a nice little 9/10, as much as i love this game i don't play it too often, but it really is fun! I think i got this game when it came out, and it was really fun watching the game and the community grow and change!! When i joined, not every player had a jump button, and there was this cool feature called 'Clans' (replaced by the player clans, sadly :() where there were 5 packs that you had to either defeat the alpha of or become besties with, and you'd get a packmate of any rarity from them daily!! My bestie pack was called 'the moonrise pack' and the #1 public enemy was 'The tooth pack' or something. I definitely recommend it :3!!
Ultimate Wolf/Fox/Forest/Savanna/Dinosaur/Cat/Shark/Bird/Jungle Simulator: they made a LOT of these games. These are only the ones that are free on my tablet, but im also seeing 'ocean,' 'dog,' 'arctic,' and 'lion' simulators for a dollar, you'd have to check and see if those are free. I'm mostly focusing on the WOLF simulator here, because i do NOT want to download all of those games. There is no multiplayer option for any of them. All made by gluten free games, no idea the release dates.
Playable Animals: The animals depend on which game you get. I know forest has bears, Savanna has cheetahs, Dinosaur has T-rex, triceratops, and ankylosaurus, bird has parrots and eagles, and jungle has tigers, but these are definitely not every animal !!
Customizability: you unlock a skin for every few levels, and you can tint them, but that's about it. For every game. There's like... 8-15 for most?
I give it a 7/10. As much as i do really, really love this game and all the memories playing it, it's really not the most entertaining game out there. If you're really bored and have nothing to do, sure, go wild with it!!
Dog Sim: I just got this game and it's so silly !! Made by Turbo Rocket Games in 2016, the multiplayer servers are surprisingly still decently active! Obviously it doesn't update anymore.
Playable Animals: The only animals in these are: (you guessed it) dogs. There's a single skin that... might? be a wolf, and there's two robo dog skins. There's a total of 38 skins!
Customizability: The only thing you can customize is your breed, sorry!
Other than that, theres a LOT to play with! With 5 bosses, 25 enemy/prey creatures, 1 map, 1 den, a max level of 200, a maximum family size of 4, 20 achievements, and 30 quests, there's plenty to do!
I give it a nice 8/10, the only points taken being because the game itself isnt the highest quality, and the models arent all 10/10, but it's still a really silly game! I do recommend it :)
Cat simulator - animal life: created in 2019 by Pocket Games entertainment, i think this one is pretty cute! With active multiplayer servers!!
Playable Animals: Just kitties! silly little kitties on big adventures!!
Customizability: Lots of cute skins and accessories!!!
There are tons of quests, camp upgrades, and more included in this!!
I didn't play this one for too long, but there are some pvp servers aswell. Overall really cute game, not too buggy/laggy! 10/10 :3
Wild Cougar Sim (3D): Another game made by Turbo Rocket games before their big success that was Wildcraft, Cougar Sim was created in 2015 (I think? I'm only finding the youtube trailer, dont be afraid to correct me.) I'm not seeing an option for multiplayer unfortunately :(!
Playable Animals: Yeah, It's just Cougars! What did you expect?
Customizability: With eight skins (Must be purchased with ingame currency), 9 coat marking options (Almost like tattoos!) including a Shark, Wolf, Lizard, Scorpion, Butterfly and Bird (Phoenix?), and options to change body/limb sizes, there's actually really good customization here!
With 3 unlockable family members, 30 quests, 20 achievements, 18 enemy/prey creatures, 4 biomes, and 8 dens, there is plenty to keep yourself busy with here! That accompanied by the fact that this isn't even a bad looking game, i honestly give it a nice 10/10! Very cute game, not much lag, pretty good in terms of realism, it's pretty cool!! :)
Dragon Sim Online: Yet another game made by Turbo Rocket in 2016, i quite like this one! With semi-active multiplayer servers!!
Playable Animals: Quite a few different types of Dragons, varying in element, colour, and breeds!
Customizability: With 4 elements, 46 (VERY pretty) skins, and limb/body adjustment sliders, you can customize your dragon pretty well!
Similar to both Cougar Sim and Dog Sim, Dragon Sim has plenty to offer: 30 quests, 20 achievements, 27 enemy/prey creatures, 3 bosses, 6 islands and 4[?] dens, there's plenty there to keep you busy! another 10/10 from me :)
this list is incomplete !! I'm still working on this, im just having trouble finding games !! If you find any free games like these, send me an ask with some info on it!!
Can someone please explain how someone can physically identify as nonhuman? Like, do they physically see a different creature when they look in the mirror or at their body?
I keep seeing the topic of alterhumans identifying physically as something else and it confuses me
Hey! I'm a holothere (a term for being physically nonhuman - https://holothere.carrd.co/).
It can depend on the being how they experience physical nonhumanity. As stated in your comments, some may literally see their body as an animal - others may identify as physically nonhuman because if they are an animal, that means their body is too (e.g "I am a cat, therefore this is the body of a cat,").
For me personally, it comes with a deep, instinctive sense that I am not and never was human. I may appear outwardly to others as such (I call that my disguise lol) but I am nothing but a canine. It also includes intense, near constant feeling of my ears, tail, paws, fur, muzzle, etc. Being a werewolf (dog/wolf -> bipedal wolf, not wolf -> human) makes this a bit of an odd case for me too - when I'm mostly bipedal, I will instinctively walk on my paws how you'd expect a werewolf too, instead of the flat foot to the ground approach humans take. That last one could be considered a general nonhuman experience too, but it links specifically to my holotheric nature for me.
I'm not sure if this is the same for other physically identifying beings, but for me personally it comes with an entirely different set of species dysphoria. The feelings I used to deal with when I thought I was a non-physical therian are much different now I've realised my physical nonhumanity/that I was just a dog the whole time (note: not worse, just different). For example, instead of missing my paws, I'll be cringing when humans call my paws hands, or refer to me as a person, because I am not in any way human, despite my 'disguise'.
Anyway, I've rambled for way too long now so I'll leave it there. Any questions, feel free to ask.
Physical identification can involve believing one has biological characteristics of the animal (e.g. organs, blood or DNA) that can't be seen on the surface or on tests. It can also involve periods of transforming into an animal.
Also reminding you that nonhuman doesn't mean animal: vampires, elves, fae can very easily map onto a human body plan.
Feeling nonhuman from trauma or neurodivergency is also something inherently based in the body, its behaviours, sensitivities, and neural pathways.
But getting to the point:
We are a system of a lot of non-human members.
As a system member, we have a vessel and an internal body. My body innerworld is as physical as the one in the reality I share with you. And it's not human at all. I am a dryad, I am a rabbit, I am a creature.
I know for my heartmate, co believes the vessel has a physical aspect that makes it nonhuman that activates when coa fronts. A literal section of the DNA meant for something it can't really do anymore. (Something like that, good summary riv)
Holothere includes us system members which is very great.
Basically, there are a lot of ways we are physically nonhuman :)
Holothere isn't an all inclusive label of physical nonhumanity. It requires you to actually identify as that species or have a different label that fits, which being a system where none of us identify as our body means most of us are excluded from that since sometimes an identity is just physical.
For us, there's two big groups for our collective physical nonhumanity. The first is our experiences with parallel lives, which while there is a spiritual element, these are experienced more like separate physical bodies and so physically nonhuman is the best way to describe it even if it's not physically in this reality. The other is our collective trans-species identity and the general nonhuman traits we consider the body as having, and we still consider it generally in between human and not human because we are all nonhuman.
We also experience physical nonhumanity as a result of delusions or dissociation, but these are usually triggered by something else, not inherently a species any of us identify as, and are generally less healthy.
really love dynamics that are like 'it honestly doesn't matter if you view them as romantic or platonic, the point is that they love each other. the type of love is inconsequential, all that matters is that it's there'. gotta be one of my favorite genders.
no, you don’t need to wear your mask/tail to school.
i wish young nonhumans didn’t feel compelled to be ‘out’ at school, especially when it’s a dangerous environment. i keep seeing posts along the lines of “wore my tail/mask to school! people berated/teased/put their hands on me, but it’s ok”.
no, it’s not.
like.. i understand a mask or a tail can be a very validating thing for some people. and i’m not saying NO ONE should wear them at schools. but i just keep watching this mounting trend of young therians insinuating you need some physical accessory or to do quads to be a ‘real’ nonhuman. and then it leads to things like this and it makes me incredibly sad.
i’d known i was alterhuman since late elementary school, actually. it’s a huge part of my life even now, years after graduation. there wasn’t a reason for it to be brought up, so i never did. it was a closely guarded secret to me, but it didn’t feel like a weight i was carrying. i always thought “no one needs to know i’m an animal if it jeopardizes my safety. so, oh well”.
“but, how will people know that i’m an animal?”
they probably will. they probably already do.
i was the designated ‘animal’ person my entire school career despite not ever handling animals in front of anyone. if there were pets, lost wild animals (baby rabbits, birds, lizards), or sometimes even loose livestock that got onto campus, it was always me who had to go tend to them.
everyone wanted me in their group in environmental science. if a project called for animal illustrations, the same thing would happen. it was certainly weird because i was also a ‘weird kid’ and not especially desired to be around outside of that, lol. but i was never harassed for it. it made me feel very validated, actually.
i had fun during gym running and fiercely destroying the opposing team in field hockey. i taught everyone which plants were okay to forage (and we snacked on them when we had to sit on the lower field for practice). every day i was hyperaware of the limbs i had that weren’t quite there. friends noticed my ears twitch and my nose wiggle at certain stimuli. i felt nice walking on two legs. i felt nice because i felt animal and i didn’t have to prove it to anyone.
really like… just do what makes you happy. i admire the bravery it takes to so earnestly wear your identity on your sleeve like that. that’s very impressive. however, there is NO obligation to do anything like that if you understand that there will be a reaction that poses a threat to you.
i want our kids to be safe, too. you don’t have to feel dysphoria over being discreet. sometimes it’s the safest option. and sometimes, that can be really fun, too.
study everything you can about your ‘type. wikipedia and animalia are good resources. ramble about them to anyone who will listen. jokingly refer to yourself as one in friend spaces. wear discreet clothes that remind you of your ‘type. find a nice private place outside where you can run and explore and look at plants and smell the air and feel like yourself. but by no means do you have to prove yourself. you know you.
