olento

Howdy! Online, I go by "Olento". I use it/it's pronouns and am 19 years old. If I post something that seems a little bananas, it's most likely a misunderstanding. Please feel free to comment, reblog, send an ask, or even dm me. I'm sorry if we aren't on the same page, but I'm sure we're at least in the same chapter! Let's find out where the disconnect is together!

[yksi-olento]

★•〰〰〰•✧ Howdy, folks and critters! ✧•〰〰〰•★ I wasn't planning on doing an "official" introduction, but I've found that I rather enjoy making longer-than-average tumblr posts. I figured that I ought to let folks know a bit about me and why I have so much to say (even if I'm not a big creator or anything like that). Online, I go by "Olento". It means "creature" in Finnish. As my content implies, I'm part of the non-human community. I consider myself to be some sort of fae creature. A changeling, nature spirit, or even one of the green folk. I use it/its pronouns to reflect my inhuman and gender-queer identity. As of right now, I'm 19 years old. My content on this blog is intended to be just me voicing my thoughts and opinions on non-human matters. Although, it's more often I'll post something silly or unrelated.

I've noticed that most of the non-human community seems to be that of a much younger demographic. I think it's important that people know that we aren't just "12 year olds wearing animal masks and doing quads". Please note- It's alright to be a 12 year old therian who wears a mask and does quads. My point is more-so that the community has a lot more going on. We are diverse in age, identity, and individual experience. I like to be a voice on tumblr that expresses this. I love to express in words what many of us have on our minds. I adore starting conversations with care, not igniting discourse out of malice. It's wonderful to be living proof that atypical identities don't disappear once you grow up.

[moldspace]

a teeny green faun

[yksi-olento]

I yearn for the day that the neopronouns are just pronouns. I'm sick of having my in-person pronouns be different than my niche online community pronouns.

[cosmicstrays]

[luetta]

[clawessout272]

Ta-da!! Look what I made!!

It's the therian flag but I replaced the colors with fabrics. I saw people doing this on Pinterest with other flags and decided to give it a shot

[yksi-olento]

New bird-feed just dropped.....

...or any granola type snacks...mmm mmm mmm yummy...

[yksi-olento]

becoming more woke by microdosing on the tumblr takes that would evoke an almost violent reaction from the mainstream

[yksi-olento]

I apologize if any of this sounds silly. I'm mainly posting it to see if anyone else relates.

Usually, online, I'll see folks and critters chatting about their specific types and the kind of things they experience regarding them. I've seen dogs talk about vocals, birds talk about nesting, dragons wishing they could fly, and shape-shifters yearning to change their form. Often, I see people with multiple types chatting about the overlapping traits.

I really do wish that I could relate to such a thing. It sounds wonderful to be able to track down which traits connect to what. It all seems so clear-cut when others post and chat about their experiences. I wonder how many are in the same boat as I. How many folks are out there who have a more vague type? I heavily identify with fae creatures, but I'm not so sure what kind. Pixies adore flying, brownies are excellent at mending things, dryads are especially connected with plants, and púca enjoy climbing anything they can latch their paws onto. So what does that mean for someone who has all of those traits? I know I'm not multiple creatures, but it seems that nothing ever quite fits. Is there some niche micro-label that describes it? Does it exclude me from taking part in a community that loves to post detailed lists of how they identify? I'm not sure if this will make sense. I hope someone gets it.

[sh4rpmudt33th-deactivated202602]

Can I crawl in the woods and be those weird two eyes you catch on your flash light then vanish when you double back? Or is that too cryprid weird for this?

[yksi-olento]

I yearn to be the rustle in a nearby bush that is "probably just a squirrel or raccoon or something".

[cavebehindthevines]

Quick thought on the sudden rise in therian talk in news

So today I’ve seen posts on multiple platforms from those living in Latin America saying the news and social media is suddenly discussing therians a lot, in a very negative way.

Something I need y’all to know, based on my experience living as trans for 10 years and being a furry for several as well: DO NOT TALK TO THE MEDIA. You can speak to TRUSTED, preferably independent journalists. Previously center and liberal news media like CNN and the New York Times have taken a steep rightwing shift. Do not go on podcasts, do not talk to tv reporters, etc. It will put you in harms way. You will be taken out of context. They will attack you with premeditated questions to make you look bad, knowing you are not prepared to debate/justify your existence. I repeat,

DO NOT TALK TO THE MEDIA.

[irreverententity]

as isolating as it is being an alterhuman in adulthood I like that I get to be one of those adults that is proof to people it’s not always a phase and it’s okay to be yourself

[lizardywizard]

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.

[creditednature]

A Fairy bush, not to be meddled with or disturbed.

Lone bush at Bearna. “The Photographic Collection, F037.01.00002” by Dúchas © National Folklore Collection, UCD is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.

[thingsfromthedirt]

[yksi-olento]

I talked to an anti-abortion protestor today. I only processed the fact that there was no point once I realized that he really truly believes that "a zygote is a little human created in god's image".

He also knew practically nothing about how reproduction works. It was horrific stuff. His moral compass was a möbius strip. Like no, the human isn't only able to give birth when it's "ready". It is not "just gods will" for a five year old to give birth. The removal of a cluster of cells isn't murder. Any time I had a valid argument, he'd open his bible like it was a biology textbook. I mentioned that abortion held less moral weight than killing an ant. He then told me that humans aren't animals and are also created in god's image so they're more important and better than any other creature. Hello?? What??

[canis-latranz]

he was onto something