Mastodawn

Copy of a post I made on a forum today. The thread is about "Your needs as a therian".

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I already suspected this was going to be the case when I saw this thread earlier, but looks like my needs and solutions are pretty different. ^^

[For context, the other replies talked about physical exercise, emulating eating habits, taking a walk in nature, the desire to hunt... these sort of things.]

Just like many here, I have the need to "be an animal". I don't address it with physical activity or by wearing accessories, though, because no matter how small the gesture, I would be reminded of the fact that my body isn't shaped the way it should be. Noises come out wrong. Things I should be able to do are overly exhausting, painful or even impossible. And most importantly, I'm unable view myself as an animal if I know I look like a human being weird from the outside. I think I felt this way even as a child because I never did any of the typical therian childhood things.

A good question you might ask now is: "If you care about what you look like to outsiders, then what about when being alone?" The tricky part is that this isn't a matter of actually being seen by strangers, but rather it's the mechanism behind my self-image. I'm very introspective and constantly analyze myself and my actions from an outsider's perspective. A consequence of this is that my self-image comes from "outsider me" as well. So even if I was alone in the woods and howled, in my mind I'd see a human howling and that just kills it for me.

Instead of physically acting on my needs, I had the habit to imagine life as an animal when going to bed. It was the perfect time to really dive into it without any distractions or interruptions, forget about the real world and be an animal for a while. The only problem was that I quickly fell asleep. Nowadays, I use vector art to tap into my imagination and essentially draw "snapshots" of alternative existences that could've been. The advantage of drawing is that by giving my imagination a tangible shape, I'm forced to think about it in great detail. As long as a form only exists in your mind, your brain lets you get away with a lot of handwaving, but it's impossible to draw a reference of me as a wyvern without fleshing out all the little aspects of my body. I can't draw wyvern-me in a scenery without thinking about his life and how it would've led to the moment I'm about to draw. I find all of this very fulfilling and I'd even say that adopting vector art as my hobby 5 years ago is the best thing that happened in my life.

My second need is to be perceived as nonhuman.

I used to be a sleepwalker. It doesn't happen too often anymore nowadays, but occasionally there are nights when I wake up and my mind is still dreaming. There's one particular kind of half dream that happened maybe 3 times in total: I'm convinced I'm able to turn into an animal, and then I do it. Of course, nothing really happens and this dream state wears off pretty quickly. I will never forget how I felt during these moments: The absolute certainty I can turn or have turned into an animal, without even a shred of doubt. None of the voices of reason in the back of my mind telling me "oh no way, that's impossible and you know it". It's so incredibly freeing.

I bring this up because being perceived by others as nonhuman (to a certain degree) allows me to view myself as nonhuman (to the same degree) as well and I get at least some of this freedom back.

One possible solution is a fursuit. While I generally don't care about them at all, I occasionally come across some which feel distinctly "nonhuman" to me. I love those. In the Daily Thought thread, I once described a fursuit I think would work for me: a werewolf with short stilts for convincing digitigrade legs. As a bipedal creature, it would be compatible with my human anatomy, and the digitigrade legs would push it past the threshold into the nonhuman vibe territory. Well, at least that's the theory.

In practice, I take advantage of the internet and the fact that it makes your body completely irrelevant in a lot of interactions. I can use a wyvern avatar, adjust my mannerisms, use custom emojis if the platform permits it, and people will view me as a wyvern in a capacity that works for me. This is why I care a lot about my presentation online. It's essentially a light form of roleplay. Oddly enough, I'm very uncomfortable with regular roleplay.

#volpeonWrites

Volpeon Extra Jan 24

I think it's time for me to stop clinging to the therian community and related ones. There are too many differences between how I approach this topic vs. how these communities work.

The old therian community and the few places keeping it alive are centered around experiences I don't share. I don't have shifts. I don't have instincts making me want to behave like an animal and eat random pigeons off the street. I don't have memories of a past live. There was never a grand awakening, and it feels weird to me to turn something as mundane as "learned about therianthropy" into a spiritual epiphany.

The new communities are more focused on what it means to be part of the community rather than what it means to desire an existence as an animal. They're about symbols, labels and accessories, intended to signalize to other members that you're one of them. Very few go beyond the surface level.

And no matter what flavor I choose, these communities fundamentally reaffirm our existence as humans. An animal wouldn't need to insist that it is an animal. It wouldn't have to find contrived ways to claim "I am an animal". It wouldn't use symbols to signalize just how animal it is to other animals. All of these acts highlight that there's a fundamental difference between "being an animal" and "being a therian".

I don't want to make these reminders of my humanity a central part of my life, and that's why I always kept some distance from it all. I seek an environment where I can suspend the knowledge that I'm a human so I can get as close to "being" an animal as realistically possible. I use my imagination to dive into a different life and started to draw as a way to give my visions and feelings a tangible form. This the path I follow.

Despite all of these issues, I couldn't help but feel drawn to therianthropy. After all, where else could I talk about wanting to be an animal and find people who could relate? Who wouldn't consider me a lunatic? I tried to participate in a few places where I felt comfortable, but with this lack of connection it never really worked out. At some point, you have to realize when something is futile, and for me that time is now.

#volpeonWrites

Volpeon Extra Nov 15

I suspect this monolithization of communities may also be one of the factors behind the therian/otherkin communities turning more and more indistinguishable from one another and the emergence of the alterhuman community which understands itself as an umbrella for all these identities. Many consider it a positive development, and I will concede that it is the logical conclusion to reach since all of this is based on subjective experiences without an objective truth behind it. However, I see it more critically for one big reason: these communities actually only cater to one specific mindset.

I talked about it many times before. I'm a very analytical person and above all else, I strive to understand our world the way it is, not the way I wish it was. Beliefs have limits, and it's important to recognize what their limits are. Holding beliefs is perfectly fine as long as they don't get in the way of rational thought.

And yet, this is exactly what these communities encourage. Members will commonly talk about their beliefs as if they were objective facts; that they have science on their side by making statements such as "I am psychologically a wolf" as if that by itself needs no further explanation or proof. Word games such as "I am a wolf, therefore my body is a wolf's body" serve no other purpose than allowing someone to say "I'm a wolf" with the conviction that they're more legitimate than others.

People like me can't properly talk about our views because they will often be perceived as disruptive by the majority. You will be criticized, you will be called an elitist, and any negative feelings stemming from having your needs constantly disregarded are entirely your own fault.

The reason why I'm only talking about topics related to therianthropy in my little corner here is that these communities aren't such open-minded spaces after all. People underestimate just how gigantic the effort would have to be to bring a huge crowd with vastly different views together, and to maintain an environment where everyone talks about them on equal terms. If you can't do that, cramming everything under one umbrella does more harm than good because ultimately, the majority erases everyone else.

#volpeonWrites

RE: icy.wyvern.rip/notes/af1b0c2chtf5gdwp

Volpeon Extra Nov 13

On microblogging and how it normalizes fascist methods of control.

This is a post I made somewhere else and mostly just pasted below. It therefore repeats some of the points I keep making on this account.

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If we look at our lives outside of social media, we see that we interact with different people in different settings all the time. We chat with coworkers at the office about annoying customers, or talk about personal topics with family members. With very close friends we're willing to talk about personal topics, but only if we're in a more private space rather than, say, a cafe. The standards dictating our behavior change depending on the context: the people involved, our relationship with them, the setting and possibly other factors.

Microblogging is often portrayed as a mirror of society, a global space in which participants organize themselves organically and interact with each other as usual. Want to be part of the furry community? Just follow a bunch of furries. Sounds easy enough, and indeed that's how people use these platforms. And that's a problem because it's all a lie. You follow people as one whole package, but people are rarely all about one topic. You will see anything they post, repost and quote, regardless of whether it's the art they create or a statement about the current political climate. You will see it all in your timeline, and conversely this means that you can never be certain of who is going to see your posts. A post intended for fellow insect enthusiasts may end up in someone's timeline with a phobia of insects, who demands such posts be hidden behind a content warning. The "global town square" is a paradigm of chaos with endlessly clashing standards because it doesn't work at all the way we expect.

And now I can finally get to the crux of this post: I can see how social media normalizes certain aspects of fascism to its users, or at least I can see it very clearly with microblogging.

Communities on these platforms are loosely established by proximity with (i.e. following) other members, which leads to them only being able to exist as monoliths on the network. People use phrases such as "the _ community on Bluesky" or "furry twitter", so they understand that this is the case, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone question the implications: On other platforms or in the outside world, there can be multiple communities for the same subject with varying standards and values. You may withdraw temporarily or join a different community if you don't feel comfortable somewhere. On Bluesky, Twitter et al, this is impossible.

On the one hand, the situation you're placed in as a user feels reminiscent of being the target of surveillance. No matter who my posts are intended for, they're going to be broadcast to anyone, even people I would choose to exclude to avoid unnecessary conflict. If I write about my views on identity which some therians will appreciate and many won't, then the latter will see my posts nonetheless and feel compelled to react. They will voice their displeasure, come up with unfavorable interpretations behind my back, and maybe even show up to tell me how wrong I am. You automatically start to think about how your words might be received by this huge mass of people and maybe choose to remain silent after all.

On the other hand, the reverse is true as well: You get used to the idea that anyone's activity can be seen by you, that you're entitled to have a full view of "your" community, and that opposing undesired views is an act of preserving community values. It's easy to forget that in doing so, you may be part of a repressive majority because you leave the minority no place on the network to just be. And others will consciously take advantage of this dynamic and wield their popularity as a weapon.

#volpeonWrites

Volpeon Extra Jul 24, 2025

How I handle my desire to be an animal and why current internet communities aren't the right answer for everyone.

Check out the previous entry for full context: icy.wyvern.rip/notes/aa9wj6h05xb0tw8f

In short: I always felt that I needed to have a different body, to experience what it feels like and being perceived as a creature rather than a human. I have no further explanation, nor do I need one because as far as I'm concerned, they only obstruct the truth. This also means that I don't consider myself to be an animal on any level.

Over the years, I automatically adopted strategies to handle these feelings. One of them is my online identity. The internet has this magical property that your physical existence loses its usual significance so everyone's mental image of you is entirely dependent on how you choose to present yourself. Some simply stay themselves, while others like me use it as a form of roleplay where they "become" something else — in my case, a creature which represents me more genuinely than my physical self does. I use him as avatar and write posts in line with his personality and behavior, and everyone treats me accordingly. I never lose awareness of the fact that I'm a human sitting in front of a computer, but part of me can still forget about it and be Volpeon.

Another strategy which plays nicely into the first one is my art. Coming up with characters is a great way to explore this desire: Once I have a rough idea in my head, I have to think about all the details to give it a shape and to see if existing as that creature would satisfy my desire. I don't just go for good aesthetics; I also want to create characters with a plausible anatomy and which don't violate physics.
For instance, Volpeon is a wyvern specifically because this the most plausible species of a flying dragon that could exist in our world. And Areon is modelled after werewolves because a hunched over stance works best with digitigrade feet. I spend a lot of time thinking about my characters and never stop making revisions to them.

Of course, I also thought about joining communities to find other people who share this kind of experience. You would think I'd be part of the therian community or similar ones that exist today, but the only group I do feel compatible with is in fact furries.

Participating in the therian community is a mixture of being your character, but also being the person behind it who talks about labels, symbols, rituals and so on. It turns out that I actually don't like being confronted with the latter all the time because they emphasize how everyone is, fundamentally, still human or at the very least different from regular animals. The majority of the time I'm on the internet, I'm Volpeon — a wyvern, or as of recently a werewolf-like creature. A creature who wouldn't be concerned with the things therians are since he is the theoretical outcome of having this desire fulfilled. It simply wouldn't make any sense.
And yet, mainstream discourse about therianthropy is dictated by the idea that everybody *is* an animal at all times. This contradiction means the therian community — whose purpose is to bring people together to talk about their experiences — is weakening its own ability to have these exact discussions because the members are unwilling to suspend their belief for even a moment. What remains is a subculture about gestures that don't mean anything to me or may in fact be painful to those who don't subscribe to this handling of their animal identity. An example I like to bring up for the latter are statements acting like being an animal is a trivial matter and you're silly for not seeing it. To them, this is supposed to be a positive message; to me, it only causes a jolt of hurt because being an animal is unattainable for me. This is why I don't feel comfortable in most therian-centric spaces.

Furries, on the other hand, are less complicated: You create a character who represents you, and from that point you are them. There's no requirement to "be" an animal on a deeper level and show it all the time through gestures, nor is it necessary as far as I'm concerned in order to accept that people may feel more comfortable as a different creature. I'm one of them, after all!
I don't necessarily like everything about furries. I'm not even interested in fursuits and most anthropomorphic characters. But their concept of a fursona is essentially a mirror of my own handling of my identity and that speaks to me.

#volpeonWrites

Volpeon+ :wvrnFlight: (@areon)

Iceshrimp.NET

Volpeon Extra Jul 20, 2025

An interesting observation I made while running this account, and even way before, is that whenever I write about my views, people tend to assume that I must be unhappy all the time.

If you're one of them, please consider the following scenario:
Let's say you don't believe in any gods, because nothing about them makes sense to you, and consequentially decided to not participate in religions. You talk with other people about your views.
To someone of, say, Christian belief, your explanations will feel no different than mine about my animal identity feel to you. If you don't believe in God, how could you possibly be happy? You have no paradise to look forward to, no benevolent being to guide you and absolve you from your sins. You must clearly be misguided and need to be shown that God is the answer for true happiness.

I have always been very introspective. There's a constant part of me who observes my own existence and analyzes anything I do and think. I'm in a never-ending process of revising my views in the face of new insights, even if it means to give up a comfortable answer in favor of another one more aligned with my values.
To outsiders, this can be hard to comprehend. I want to be an animal, and right there is a way that allows me to "be" one. Why wouldn't I just accept it?
Long ago, I tried to become part of the therian community. I adopted their concepts and even had memories of moments that could've been shifts. And yet, it didn't work out because I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that I was making things up and lying to myself. Modern therianthropy is different, but all that has changed is that I now can't relate with it for other reasons. How could I possibly be happy if I rejected my values and pretended everything was fine?

In facing myself with brutal honesty, I'm staying true to myself. In recent years, I attained a profound sense of stability I never experienced before which has also positively affected my mental health. My negative feelings didn't vanish or became duller, but rather my understanding of them improved and that allows me to handle them better. I've never been further away from misery than today.

#volpeonWrites

Volpeon Extra Jul 16, 2025

#volpeonWrites

I think this is a good tag to use for my longer posts. I'm kicking it off with an overview about the big topic I mentioned in the pinned post: the desire to be an animal and what it means to me.

I always have a hard time writing about my personal development throughout my life. It was, and still is, a constant and never-ending process without clear boundaries, "awakenings" or grand realizations, but rather small changes which accumulate over time. It doesn't help that reflecting on your past also means reinterpreting it with your current mind and effectively changing it unintentionally.

As a child at around kindergarten age, I often imagined being a bird with as much detail as I could. It was just a normal memory for me — until I grew suspicious of why I wanted to be an animal so badly. Could it have been an early sign that my soul was that of an animal and I ended up in this body on accident? I held this belief for a while, inspired by all the fantasy novels I had been reading at that point. Then I learned about therianthropy and the meaning of those memories changed. Could it have been a shift? Oh damn, there were quite a few of these now that I'm thinking about it!

It's easy to color your understanding of yourself without even realizing. I had shifts because they were the common experience among therians. I talked about myself with language carefully chosen to evoke the idea that an external force made me feel this way, that I was "supposed to be" an animal rather than "wanted to be." I followed self-imposed rules and subconsciously acted to convince not just others but also myself of the validity of my experiences.
About 5 years ago, I started to see what I was doing and got rid of all the layers I had built around my identity. I decided to only look at the truth itself and not allow myself to get distracted by arbitrary ideas. I want to understand the world and myself with absolute clarity.

The truth is that some of my earliest memories are imaginations of being a bird, and later on other animals. I am drawn to the idea of possessing a non-human body and experiencing life as a different creature. I want to know what it feels like to have fur, a muzzle, paws, wings, to fly or to walk on digitigrade legs, to move around with a body with completely different proportions and senses and capabilities. I want to be perceived as a creature that isn't a human. I want it so badly.
Beyond that, there is no deeper meaning or purpose, and there doesn't need to be. This is the answer I have reached.