It's May 24th, which is schizophrenia (and psychosis) awareness day. We have schizoaffective disorder ourselves, and it influences our own alterhumanity in a few ways here and there. We've probably done a post like this before, but I'm doing it again.
Reminder that alterhumans of any kind with psychosis are no less real in their identities than an alterhuman without psychosis. Having a psychotic disorder doesn't discredit your personal identity in any way, even if it does stem from a delusion. It doesn't matter where your identity comes from.
So. Shoutout to: Systems formed from or influenced by psychosis. Otherkin who are nonhuman due to delusions. Endels of any kind. Otherlinkers who have 'linked something to help with their psychosis or because of it. Otherhearteds who have a hearttype that relates to their psychosis. Physical nonhumans who are this way due to delusions. Fictionfolk and factfolk who have their identities influenced/formed by psychosis. Alterhumans who get euphoria from their psychotic symptoms. Alterhumans who are alterhuman because they're psychotic. Alterhumans who just happen to have a psychotic disorder and those two things don't intersect.
You deserve a place in this community. You deserve to be accommodated, you deserve to be safe, and you deserve to not be the talking point of discourse every other month.
I've made silly beam emojis (intended for discord but. Yknow, free for whatever). Beams to fire at your friends to turn them alterhuman or.. Something! Some of these are a little crudely done but this is because I'm being silly with it. Enjoy, creatures!
In order, we have:
Alterhuman, using the alterhuman flag colours (by gh0stspxce) + the alt key.
Otherkin, using the nonhuman unity flag colours + the elven star.
Therian, using the nonhuman unity flag colours + the theta delta.
Otherhearted, using one of the otherhearted flags and the diamond heart symbol.
Otherlink, using one of the otherlink flags (darkened for visibility) and the diamond link symbol.
Plural, using one of the many plural pride flags and the plural rings.
Soulbond(er), using one of the soulbonding flags and the symbol by lunar-solstice-plur.
Soulbond(er)s who are in a relationship with their soulbond(er)s, using the same flag and the symbol by lunar-solstice-plur.
Terrorpunk, using the terrorpunk symbol and its colours by. Us!
Will I make more? Maybe. Perhaps. It really depends on motivation more than anything. But have fun with these in the meantime.
Do you ever feel like an animal that's been held in close contact with humans for too long? Like you'd never be able to be released into the wild again due to how accustomed you are to living within human society? You wouldn't survive out there anymore, you're too used to being fed. You haven't been amongst the trees or within the waves or in the skies for so long, they've started to feel foreign.
Do you ever feel like you're stuck between being domesticated and being wild, in some sort of limbo where both extremes somehow feel wrong at the same time?
Nonhumans are here, even if you do not see us. We always will be. We are often hard to spot, but can be found doing all the things a human might.
A cat went to work at an event stall for a mental health service.
A massive sea serpent wanted to go to science class because it enjoyed it more than the rest of those living in its shared form.
The void sat down, huddled up in a blanket, to watch a tv show with its partners. It had to stop watching after a bit, but enjoyed spending time with those close to it anyway.
A wolf went to a psychologist appointment and gratefully drank the hot chocolate they were offered in the waiting room.
A shapeshifting being of pure darkness spoke publicly about trans rights in front of politicians and then went to the pride festival he helped fight to keep alive.
A dragon went to school so the others sharing his human body could have a break.
A manifestation of the fear of madness itself sat in the food court at the mall eating mochi and drinking tea while waiting for its friends to get back from shopping.
A witch drew a picture of his cardinal bird and shared the work he was so proud of with his friends.
A cockatoo borrowed the next book in his favourite series from the school library and almost couldn't wait the whole day to go home and read it.
An alien went camping and watched the birds outside and the way the wind made waves and patterns on the water.
A fallen angel went shopping for sunglasses to shield his eyes from how bright the sun was.
A harpy went shopping for new plants to look after. He named a few because he loved them so much, and sent pictures to all of his friends.
An anthropomorphic hedgehog traded Pokemon cards with his peers at school. He was happy with his collection.
You may not see us, and you may feel alone, but you are not. We are just hidden. We are in more places than you'd think, and in the places you'd least expect. We are complex, we are valued, and we are here.
Exotrauma is so stupid. What do you mean I've lived through horrors a psychologist would barely be able to conceptualise? What do you mean it's hard to find one who would want to help with that?
Another installment in our Anatomy Of: series, this time focusing on my own experience being a flygon!
Flygon, the Mystic Pokemon. What a title!
I’m Radar! I specifically am a flygon from Hoenn, and a part of a noncanon search-and-rescue organisation that operated throughout the region. In particular, I was often sent on missions into the desert on route 111, and Mt. Chimney. I was born and raised captive, so unfortunately I won’t be able to shed all too much light on wild flygon from my world as I wasn’t one of those.
As per the usual disclaimer, this is about my own experience as a flygon and not a dictation on what canon is or isn’t. This is about me, not any other flygon!
Word Count: 3,476
Warnings: Mentions of pokemon harm, discussion of species dysphoria.
Archive: On our website!
Basic Anatomy:
Information about the body structure of a flygon! This is more of a basic rundown than anything in-depth, some things will be further expanded upon later in the document!
Antennae: Two long antennae sit on the top of a flygon’s head, often swooping back when relaxed. These are sensitive to changes in the air and touch, and also used for communication.
Wings: Large, rhombus-shaped and smooth wings. Their flapping is audible and sounds like humming.
Eyes and Lenses: Two eyes, underneath red, protective “lenses” that keep out debris in its native environment.
Claws: Small but sharp claws, 3 on each hand.
Feet: Long, flat feet, for distributing weight on the sand.
Teeth/Mouth: Teeth are small and sharp, good for breaking past the tough skin common among those in desert environments.
Tail: A long and smooth tail, with a fan-shaped tip. The tail is generally pretty muscular and used to stir up sand and dirt.
Social Life:
I was never wild and while I knew of other flygon, I didn’t spend all too much time with them! Not enough to pick up on specific things beyond what I myself experienced. So I can’t speak about our species as a whole. I can’t really speak for our collective social behaviours either. But I can talk about my own experiences with my body language!
First of all, our antennae are generally a good indicator of our mood. The resting or “neutral” position is a nice gentle backward swoop. If they droop quite low, either we’re protecting our ears which are situated under our antennae, or we’re unwell in some way. If they’re very straight and pointed backward, it’s likely some form of surprise or shock, sometimes anger. If they swoop backward but at a higher angle, it usually indicates interest or excitement, like a dog's ears perking up.
I’ve actually made a diagram to show what I mean!
Aside from that, I often find myself buzzing my wings and slapping my tail on the ground when irritated–I’d assume in the wild this would be a thing we might do as a threat display! In my home environment, that behavior would absolutely kick up a lot of sand as well, so I can imagine a wild flygon trying to scare off other pokemon or trainers with similar movements. I’ve never seen a wild flygon do it as far as I remember, but.. It would make sense!
Diet:
Flygon are omnivorous, but largely consume meat in climates with less vegetation. Our claws are able to be moved independently from one another and are sharp as well as hooked–good for cracking into/prying open hard shells or tearing meat. Our teeth are small and better for cutting than chewing, so generally we tend to rip our food into small chunks with our hands, and then eat it. Overall, flygon don’t need to drink much, our bodies are adapted to arid climates and tend to need less water less often to sustain ourselves!
I personally had my own diet catered to by my trainers in the S&R facility, and I had a wider range of things to eat as a result.
Habitat:
Flygon tend to live in arid climates, and we’re best adapted for life in the desert! We have specialised eyes that act as shields against sand and winds, which is explained in more detail later. We have bodies adapted to using the heat to regulate our body temperature. We have large, long feet so we don’t sink into the sand from our weight. Our earholes are on the undersides of our antennae, which can be flattened to protect from sand… And we can even close our nostrils for that same reason! Overall, we’re primed to not only survive, but thrive in deserts.
In Hoenn, flygon are found on route 111–though they’re much more rare than our pre-evolution, trapinch. Evolution in my world isn’t tied to age, but moreso out of necessity or out of specific desire to do so. A trapinch who is perfectly happy living life in the desert and sees no need to evolve, neither for survival nor personal desire, will just not evolve! Unless that trapinch goes out of their way to seek evolution out, train their own skills to a higher level, or get stronger in some capacity, they’ll likely be happy being a trapinch for as long as they live. There’s definitely a few flygon there that I knew of in my time, though!
My Own Memories/Noemata:
Personally, I don’t remember ever being a wild flygon–I don’t think I was one. As far as I know, I was born into captivity. I also don’t remember being a trapinch, or a vibrava, or anything about the evolution process–though I’m sure I was, at some point, not a whole damn fully evolved flygon. I’m sure I didn’t come out of the egg like that!
I worked as a pokemon employee at a search and rescue center in the Hoenn region. I don’t remember the name of the company, I don’t know if I knew it. I couldn’t exactly communicate fully with the humans, I couldn’t speak their language, though we both learned enough to understand each other well enough to work together. I worked there for as long as I can remember, though unfortunately I don’t remember many of the people I worked with in any detail.
I, as a search and rescue pokemon, had roughly equal treatment as the human employees on our team. I didn’t have to be in a pokeball, I was allowed free travel of the facilities, I ate lunch with the trainers, I had breaks and time off… The only difference was that technically I was owned by the company itself and couldn’t necessarily leave, but honestly I didn’t mind at all! I don’t think I ever thought about leaving at all. I loved the treatment I got there, and I loved being able to help people and pokemon who got lost, or stuck, or into dangerous situations in the wilderness. I didn’t have a specific trainer either. I was a colleague, not a tool or a pet or forced to be anyone's pokemon partner–and the other pokemon we had working there were the same.
Primarily, I was tasked with being one of our main folks to send into desert and hot environments, particularly route 111 and around Mt. Chimney. My species, being so heavily adapted to thriving in the heat and in sandstorms made me the perfect pick to send on recovery and scouting missions out there! I feel like I was sent on several trips there a month.
People had a habit of going to the desert in route 111 especially, because of rumours of “cool rare pokemon” in the area. When the weather got worse, so did the amount of work we had to do–usually because of some sort of “severe weather means there could be cool rare pokemon out!” reason. Trainers would go in, then get lost and call or go missing and their relatives would call us. Due to the severity of the sandstorms in that area, it was so common for people to end up stuck. We’d be routinely deployed to go find and save them, and their pokemon.
I was also a part of our natural disaster cleanup efforts. Clearing fallen trees and helping people and pokemon who may be trapped there, saving folks of all kinds from collapsed houses, sent to search wide areas from the air to find people and pokemon who might be caught in a bad situation.. Lots of things! Usually related to large storms, I don’t remember any earthquakes directly, though I get the feeling there were a few. I wasn’t often deployed on missions involving fire, we had a good lineup of water types and some other folks who could handle that work really well. They needed me specifically to handle the inevitable “kid decides he wants cool desert pokemon and gets stuck hiding there because he doesn’t understand what a sandstorm is” call we’d end up getting.
Seriously, the amount of young children running out there on a whim is astounding. With nothing but a poochyena they just caught or something similar. One kid was telling us “I thought Ziggy could handle it!!” and, respectfully, you literally just caught that zigzagoon and he almost got bitten by a gible, no he could not handle it, please go home.
Anyway. I wore a collar that had a tracker on it, so folks back at the base could see my location and recall me if I got stuck somewhere. I’m pretty sure the collar locations were constantly monitored if we were out on missions! If I stopped moving for too long or something was amiss, they’d send others out as backup. I still wear the collar in our headspace, though it doesn’t do anything anymore.
QnA:
1. How do the eye lenses work?
Essentially, they’re a part of the eye itself. They’re like a hardened shell over the eye, extending onto the sides of the head, to absolutely ensure nothing can get in our eyes or affect our vision while in the harsh desert conditions we tend to live in. We don’t need to blink, as the lenses keep the eye protected and adequately moist.
Due to the lenses being red, we do mainly see in red hues! We can still see differences in colour, but for the most part, things tend to be in varying shades of red.
2. What does a flygon sound like?
A flygon makes a bunch of different sounds, mostly consisting of chittering, hissing, and growling. Most noises are highish in pitch, and used for various forms of communication. A flygons wings also make noise because of how fast they have to move to get one to fly. Our wings make a humming or buzzing sound, wavering in pitch depending on how fast ones wings are flapping and what direction they’re tilted in.
3. Are there any subspecies? Colour mutations?
There’s a few different types of flygon I’ve seen, though there for sure could be more. The way our body is structured tends to vary slightly depending on where exactly we grew up, and there’s possibly some variations in trainer-bred flygon too! Overall, a flygon’s colours, markings and body type can vary–colours especially.
I personally have pinker markings than most of my wild cousins, and more of them too! I’m not sure if this is something that was bred for, or if this is just a trait some flygon have, like different coat patterns in this-world animals. I’ve never seen a shiny flygon as presented in the games, though they could be a thing. Mostly, we’re differing shades of green, bluegreen and yellowgreen, with varying levels of pink, orange or red to our markings.
On the more drastic changes… I’ve in particular seen a sort of “thorned” variant, where the flygon is covered in thornlike scales in addition to its regular tough skin. Like an extra sheet of armour! This pokemon was captive-bred and I believe they were from another region–just visiting Hoenn. I’m unsure if this was a thing that was specifically bred for, or if there’s a wild variant somewhere with this trait! I’ve seen a flygon with very, very long antennae once too, and like the thorned flygon, I have no idea if this is something specifically bred for, or if it comes naturally elsewhere.
4. Do flygon have sexual dimorphism?
A little bit, but not much! Male flygon tend to have longer antennae, though this isn’t always the case as antennae length also varies per-individual. Males’ tail fans also tend to be bigger overall. Other than that, there’s no clearly visible difference!
5. Do flygon really take sandstorms wherever they fly?
This idea seems to have mostly come from folks seeing flygon in their home environment–deserts–whipping up sand with the beating of their wings. It’s true that this often happens even when a flygon isn’t attacking, and that it's actually really common. Our wings beat hard and fast to get us off the ground, which creates enough movement in the air that it sends sand flying everywhere! Especially during takeoff, when we need to flap harder, faster, and even run along the sand while doing so to gain lift. It sure looks like a sandstorm and can take a while to settle after a flygon takes off! This can combine with other winds already present and escalate into a sandstorm, but usually if a flygon is just trying to take off, they’re not consciously trying to start a sandstorm in their wake.
We don’t involuntarily create sandstorms everywhere we go, though. A flygon can make sandstorms with moves, but this isn’t a constant thing a flygon does just by flying around. A flygon might also deliberately whip up a sandstorm as a defense mechanism, or as a way of trapping and catching prey off guard–but these are behaviours, not constant facts of being a flygon.
6. How fast is a flygon able to fly?
Flygon fly pretty fast! We’re able to tuck our legs and arms in to enable us to fly with a more streamlined shape. Our wings are able to flap super quickly to the point where you’ll likely hear us coming before you see us, which also helps in our flight speed! It’s a little hard to get a good takeoff sometimes, so we usually get a running start by darting across the sand, flapping our wings, and jumping off of a dune or hill! I don’t have an exact measurement, but where I’m from, we can catch up to basically anything that lives in the desert!
7. What does a flygon feel like?
Flygon generally feel leathery! We have skin, not scales, feathers or fur–though some flygon have “thorns” as previously mentioned. Our skin is tough and thick, though not rough to run your hand across. Our antennae, feet, wings and tail fans are generally more stiff and tough than the rest of our skin.
8. Where is a flygon’s ears?
Our ears are on our head, under the antennae! They look like little holes that we can close up to prevent sand getting into them, kind of similar to how seals close their nostrils and ears when diving! We fold our antennae over them when there’s too much sand being kicked around in the air, to prevent any sand from getting in there and causing problems–this is also why they’re more on the back of our head than the sides! Our hearing isn’t exactly the best, but combined with our antennae sensing vibrations and movements in the air, they do the job!
In This World:
In-Body Euphoria
I like wearing headphones! Realistically, those are not my eyes or my lenses, but the feeling of something round and bulky on either side of my head makes it feel a little more like I’m shaped correctly. They even cover our human ears, which is an added bonus!
In-Body Dysphoria
I have quite a few main sources of bodily dysphoria. I mean, a soft-skinned, nonflying animal with hair (what even is that??) and nails instead of claws is, well… Nothing like me at all! If I had to put a few on a list in order of what bothers me most to least, though..
Lack of antennae. These are such an important part of my body language and my own navigation of the world.
Eyes are just.. Out there! Imagine if you were suddenly placed in a body where, say, you had no lips to cover your teeth. All of a sudden, your mouth dries out easily because wind and whatever is just allowed in there whenever it wants. You get dirt in there more easily, you have to remember to cover it and protect it when it’s windy, and overall it’s so exposing! That’s how I feel about my lenses just.. Not existing. My eyes feel like they’ve had a vital component taken away from them and they feel vulnerable, exposed, and irritable.
Soft skin. This body doesn’t need to be able to withstand being battered by sand on a constant basis, so it just… It’s so soft! Anything can hurt! Prickly things like cacti really hurt!
Phantom Shifts
I’ve made a map to show what phantom shifts I get!
I don’t front all too much, due to the dysphoria, but when I do I almost always have phantom antennae. They don’t react or feel things as my real antennae would, which is sad, but they’re still there in my mind! They still move with my moods, even if others can’t see them. I’ve had all of the other displayed phantom shifts at least once, but I don’t front often enough to give a general idea of how often I get the other shifts.
Mental Shifts
My only mental shift-like state is when I’m irritated or overstimulated, I have such an urge to start flicking my tail, slapping it into the ground, stomp one of my feet, and hiss.. But that would just look like we’re throwing a tantrum or something if I were to do it in the body. The woes of being stuck in human form!
Differences from Source Media
Overall, there’s a lot of differences between how a flygon can look compared to canon. In canon, a flygon can either be standard or shiny, and can be larger or smaller than average. No markings, no different antenna sizes or wing patterns, nothing! Of course, source is a tv show and a game, and making every pokemon look like an individual would be tricky, but it’s still noteworthy that pokemon in my world were pretty diverse, a lot of the time! There were some pokemon who looked the same or almost the same across the whole species, but flygon definitely wasn’t one of them.
In source media, as seen at the start of the document, flygon looks like this.
I personally however, look like.. This!
There’s a few key differences here:
My snout is more angular, and more smoothly transitions from my antennae into my nose.
My wings are less diamond-shaped.
My tail segments have coloured bands of pink inbetween them.
My nostrils are bigger.
I have toes.
My arms are longer.
I’m a little chunkier in my body shape, and my neck is more evenly shaped.
Overall, I look more reptilian and dragonlike than canon flygon.
A lot of these differences are common among any flygon from my world! As far as I’m aware, we all had that sort of dragonlike appearance to us, as opposed to canon flygon looking more buglike.
Aside from the appearance of flygon, canonly as far as I am aware there’s no search and rescue team in Hoenn, and pokemon even if employed, still all have a trainer. It was pretty normal where I come from for companies of all kinds to have pokemon work for them without being “owned” by anyone in particular!
In Conclusion:
That’s… All I have for now! I came into this system with a bunch of noemata and knew I needed to get it down somewhere so I wouldn’t forget. I’ve been stashing bits of memories into a file for a while and just a month or so ago at the time of writing, decided to start work on this document. It’s been giving me a reason to front! Icarus’ idea of writing it all down in a document to share really intrigued me, so I’m following in its footsteps! Or.. Talonsteps?
I’ve never seen another flygon outside of my system, which honestly just feels like another reason to write this all down and make it public. I might not get to know other flygon if there’s any out there, but I’ll at least leave a mark that I was here. As the reader, I might be a little blip on your radar, even. c:
I just had a realisation. For clarity, this whole thing is from a lens of within the alterhuman community, excluding outsiders sentiments.
So, you know how fictionfolk often get upset by things posted in fandom spaces about their source, and they're essentially given a "you have to acknowledge it's not about you the person it's about the character so you need to get over it" as a response? And that's the general community sentiment. It's only seen as ok to be upset at all if someone's being an ass to your face directly about you, and if not then you have to separate from your source to "get over it because it's not about you". Sometimes even if someone is being weird about your source to your face, you get mixed responses and people telling you it's "not that deep".
But.. with animalfolk (and otherkin who aren't generally seen as fictionkind). I think from what we've seen it's more normalised if a fox therian sees someone saying foxes are stupid and gets upset. It's more okay for a dragonkin to get pissy when people say all dragons are xyz. And if someone brings animal-based stereotypes to an animalfolk like "dragons are all stuck up" to dragonkin, they're 9.9/10 times going to be backed up fully by the community around them. This is ignoring when animalfolk are making comments like "these animals in these cute videos are being mistreated" and correcting misinformation--because that's a separate thing of them informing and reducing harm as opposed to a personal vent. I'm only talking about the community-wide "valid" responses to criticism of your source and emotions around that.
Fictionfolk who are also animalistic or things like fictherians aren't exempt from the treatment of fictionfolk mentioned above, either, so it feels less about animality (and less about what's "physically real" due to non-animal otherkin/mythkin) and more about the identity being fictional in general.
Now I know animals are "real" (and in the case of dragons/other mythkin who aren't earth animals, well-established in the alterhuman community) and fandom should be allowed to exist as fandom, I'm not advocating for fictionfolk shutting fandom up or anything. This is about the allowance of emotion people feel. I'm not talking about what animalfolk or fictionfolk do in response to these situations, just simply the way others react when they simply express discomfort. Animalfolk from what we've seen aren't told to separate from their identity "just a little more" so they're less upset when people call cats stupid or ugly, they're usually supported. Fictionfolk on the other hand are much less likely to be supported and more likely to be told that for their own health, they should separate from their source. It feels so vastly different in how these things are handled.
And of course, nothing against animals or animalfolk--it's just a longstanding thing that fictionfolk are left behind a fair in the community bit so animalfolk are the baseline of how people should be treated by their community in my opinion.
On a similar vein of thinking, factfolk (including nonhuman factfolk) are often dragged through the mud even moreso than fictionfolk, in very similar ways. You have to be careful with what you say as a factive or someone will accuse you of... Anything under the sun, really. Especially if you talk about your source and your feelings about them. Factfolk are expected to be largely separated from their source in general, not just when they dare to have emotions about it. Which... Isn't great!
Maybe this post is an ice cold take but the "you need to step back from your identity" idea is really normalised and--yeah, in a lot of cases it's healthier to step back, but.. Why is that the response given to people venting? Why do we expect fictionfolk and factfolk to readily sever their close-knit connection to their source whenever others think it's too unhealthy for them? To change who they personally are whenever they vent their frustrations? Why are fictionbased and factbased identities treated as less of an irremovable part of you and something you should bend and remove yourself at least partially from? The more I think about it, the more it feels incredibly unfair that it's so normalised.
And I think it shows that yeah, there's a long way to go for acceptance of fictionfolk and factfolk in our community. These things need to change and have needed to for a damn while. I don't have any solutions, but I have opinions and rambles, so maybe sharing them will spur something on. At the very least I hope some people see this and feel seen, and feel like it's not morally wrong or a personal failing to feel upset when your source is insulted--or anything of the sort, for that matter.
