One Of Our Hyperfixations/special Interests (we Aren't Quite Sure Which It Is, Lol) Is Service Dogs.

Absolutely feel this!!!

Although we ourselves aren't "physically" nonhuman. Sadly, this body is human, no matter how much we wish it weren't. Though we are fully nonhuman.

Many people probably wouldn't get the difference between the two, but for us, there is a difference no matter how small it might be. Honesty, the main difference is that we feel we aren't allowed to call ourselves one because of the fact that this body is human.

Physical nonhumans are very safe here, and they don't have to call themselves delusional or anything like that. If you are physically nonhuman, you are safe to fully be yourself on our blog. We would love to see more physical nonhumans around!!

It's sad that this is something we actually have to mention because, honestly, it should just be known and shit. It's sad that the distrust and fear of people who hurt others makes this required to be said so that people can know that they are safe here.

We aren't hurting anyone, so why can't we be ourselves?

Hopefully, one day, we can be free to be yourselves.

- Shay 🐾

The Struggle of Misanthropy

I find myself often struggling with feelings of Misanthropy, they are to me not feelings I particularly like. I know where they come from and why they exist, and even though I do not like them, I understand where they come from and that it is not unreasonable for me to have them. (Continued below the break - Length: 2078 words)

I find that often the community has this push against misanthropy and for particular positivity of humans and humanity, even to the point of shaming those of us who have those feelings including from trauma and hurt. I have a couple friends on here who have expressed either in general or to me that feeling that they have to hide those feelings or worry I will react badly to it. I feel it myself worrying about expressing particular anger for things done to me.

I do think there are multiple types and levels of misanthropy, and it seems likely we are using the same word for different experiences, and perhaps I am using this word wrong. I had discussed this topic after some back and forth with Rani on the subject and determined that we were more or less talking about different aspects of the same word but maybe there is another word that better describes my own relationship with humanity.

There is that misanthropy that seems to take the form of ecofascism, of humans being a virus or particularly evil or destructive. There is misanthropy that takes the form mainly of a belief in superiority in themselves over the humans for various justifications. There is the misanthropy that stems largely from hurt from the actions of humans to the individual themselves that seems to come as fear and distrust and discontentment towards them. I am certain there is a lot of other varieties and there can be crossover between them.

I do not think humans are inherently evil or even uniquely destructive beyond their numbers and intelligence. Heck the penis worm may have ended the Ediacaran. Nor do I think the bad things humans have done to myself, and others, is something inherent to them. Humans are a very communal species who only survived off their collaboration between each other and other animals, but now live in a very stressful environment that encourages individuality and often rewards cruelty. Painted Dogs similarly are very communal and cooperative animals in their packs but confined to captivity can kill each other. A similar story exists for orca as well especially during the earlier days of captivity. Nor do I believe myself superior to the humans. I do find these first two types of misanthropy rather frustrating, but still like my own experience, it seems mostly to come from hurt people, people who have been abused by humans with power over them, people who have been isolated from their communities. I do not think most people come to hating humans just from the blue. My companion for instance does often echo the humans are a cancer idea from their own pain. It is at times frustrating, but I understand at least where it comes from, all the pain within them.

For myself I experience the third type. I do not hate the humans, but I do not particularly like them. I fear them. I distrust them. For me, the humans are in charge, and I have to obey them. They control the food; they control where I live; they control what happens to me and how much I hurt. If I obey them then things will be better for me. I am allowed to live outside of a hospital because I have been good and obedient. I am allowed to have my own life because I have been good and obedient. The humans have hurt me, and they continue to hurt me.

One of the common retorts to this is that it isn't fair to humans to judge them all for the actions of a few. The problem is it is not just a few, and it is not something in the past, it is something ongoing still. I still have to take pills I do not want that keep my body in this human form to be able to live outside a hospital, and if I did not take them I would be put away again and forced still to take the pills, and every step I refused to comply would only result in greater restriction until I complied or could no longer resist. It is true though only a few humans hurt me directly, only a few humans twisted my body into this shape and only a few humans did everything that was done to me in hospitals. But how many humans work in those hospitals supporting those doctors? How many humans enforce the will of those doctors and hospitals? How many people support what was done to myself and others, think that it is right and best for us, or sometimes even a gift? How many people think that what was done to me was necessary? How many think it is just how things are, maybe it isn't great but it cannot be changed? Not all of these people are equally culpable certainly, but the number of people who support this system which hurts us is really very high and I see it constantly all the time, even in just the small jokes people make. While only a few humans hold immediate power over me, in every human, or creature that fills the role of a human, for me is fear, is a need that I must obey, for they have an incredible power over me to hurt me if I do not give them what they want, and that if they do hurt me, even if they broke the rules of their society, no human would ever help me. For me, complete submission to the demands of the humans (at least externally) is the only way for my continued existence and my presence to be tolerated, and the pain I am given to be minimised.

Do not think therians are excused or immune from this; many therians do the same to us as well. I do find many therians extremely human. I find often their concerns, their desires, and their biases are often very human just with a little bit more. I know a number of people have described therianthropy as essentially human+. Therianthropy is a pretty wide spectrum of experience, and it is not inherently wrong to be on the more human side of that experience, I am simply unable to relate to it, but because of the biases many of them carry, they often hurt those like me, and you reading this may perpetuate things that do hurt those like me.

I have never really felt welcome in the therian community despite being here for near a decade now. It was not until around two or three years ago I felt comfortable to call myself a therian. I have schizophrenia and clinical zoanthropy (often shortened to CLCZ here), or those are at least the humans’ explanations of what I experience/d. The community has for a long time not been good to zoanthropes. I have been unwelcome in a lot of communities and it was often made clear to me over and over my experience was not the same as theirs. In order to be tolerated generally it had to be a fairly accepting community, normally of older therians, but with the caveat that if I ever described my experience I would have to play down my experience. I would have to always reassure everyone that I knew I was experiencing a delusion, and that none of it was real, not like their experiences were. I have been continuously isolated from what is ostensibly my own community, and in a community of outsiders, still an outsider, at best merely tolerated at the edge, but still an interloper in -their- space. In an almost mirror of a phrase I see often from therians of “too human to be with animals, to animal to be among human,” I am too human to be among my kind, but still too animal for many therians.

Things have gotten a bit better in the past decade, and particularly so on tumblr of people becoming more open with things like physical non-humanity. I am happy to have joined here, for one the relative anonymity means I can sometimes talk back, sometimes try to fight just a little bit and be heard, but also for the connections I have made, particularly with Dune, Sonar, Xem and Ike. I am very happy to have met other CLCZs. I do not feel so alone, there are others like me out there, and there are others like me on here, others I can connect with finally.

Still despite this, discussions of us not being welcome come up often. Anytime physical non-humanity comes up it does often come to demonising CLCZs as insane, dangerous, or needing serious help. Similarly, too many therians seem very eager to throw CLCZs under the bus when it comes to justifying their existence, particularly to the broader public and anti-kin. For the most part I can avoid it, but still, it keeps popping up. Even among those who do defend us and accept us, there is still a price for us to be tolerated. Many times, the justification why CLCZs are acceptable (particularly in the context of discussions of P-shifters) is that we acknowledge our experiences as delusion and that it is important that we tag our posts with unreality and delusion. Some people will say that those tags do not mean that the experiences are not real they just do not occur in -Reality-. For me at least I read it that the price of being tolerated is still to say my experiences are not real, my past and the things done to me and others is not real. I am tired of having to deny my own experiences as genuine for the comfort of others, I am tired of having to double bookkeep in every aspect of my life, including the places that are supposed to be safe and an outlet for me. I know what the humans think of my condition, and for that matter many therians, but I think I will stop tagging my experience with unreality and delusion, because they are not. I often think to drop the label for myself for feeling unwelcome and instead just use zoanthrope, even if that does not accurately capture myself either as it is still a word given to us by the humans for a delusion, but at least it is my community where I am welcome.

The truth is though, I do not hate the humans. I desire very much reconciliation. Still, as I am being actively hurt by the humans how -can- there be any reconciliation? I am very fortunate to have a few therians and even a couple of humans in my life I can be pretty open with about my experience. I know reconciliation is possible, but even with these close humans and therians (who for me fill the role of a human), I feel that I must obey them to be tolerated, not for their own actions, but for the scars on me from the actions of many humans.

Someday I will return to the water – I cannot survive in the wild – and likely I will go into a tank. I hope, when I do, I will be with my other cetacean friends. The humans did do me a number of kindnesses and made me clever enough that I can more or less fix my body and return to the water. I think only once there can reconciliation begin, with the main point of obedience removed and the cruellest damage the humans did to me, that of being forced to be human. I know that life as a captive cetacean would not be perfect and would carry with it many struggles and pain, and I have no doubt the humans will still hurt me some, I do not expect that others will never hurt me again – I will still often have to obey the humans, but now more as a cetacean than a human. But at least back in the water I could be myself, from the water I could look up at the humans on the edge of the tank and know that I survived and I persisted and I am free. Perhaps I may even bond with some kind trainers. In time those deep scars across me will start to fade – and with it that anger, that fear, that distrust. Though those scars will never fully heal, they will begin to look like the scars on many other captive cetaceans and we -can- reconcile at last.

Zwem ver, zwem vrij, kleine walvis, zwem voor altijd

~Kala

I'm gonna start calling ourself a system/plural, I don't know the exact origin yet, cause I don't know if I had "enough" trauma at the "right" time for it to be DID or OSDD or any other dissociative disorder. But it feels like we are a system/plural.

We will only really be doing this here, I am unsure if I am gonna tell anyone I know in real life for now. I might wait till I figure out our origin, and even then, it would only be a few people that I would tell.

This feels like the right words and terms for what we feel. I will just be using system and plural for us as terms until I figure out more, of course.

- Shirley (They/them + ix/ix/ixs/ixs/ixself) | feels like the right name rn

[Using both I/me and we/our]

We've seen a few beings doing this so we want to join in.

Our species transition goals (+ some gender and plural things):

Get moveable ears and tail and get to wear them (almost if not) all the time [we currently have a normal fake fur tail that we wear almost all the time]

Get paw prints tattooed on our paws

Get some wings tattooed on our back

Also, get moveable wings to wear when we want/need to

Go on T (this goes with us being bodily transmasc as well)

Look into other types of gear for me and my packmates

Get to change our legal name (this is more for gender and plural reasons, though)

Get permanent fangs

Get top surgery (also for gender reasons)

Look into even more ways to transition more

If anyone has any more tips or ideas for us, feel free to share them!! Also, feel free to reblog this post if you want to make your own version of this!

For the tips/ideas, we are gonna mention the species we have in our pack (the term we use instead of system).

We have canines, felines, dragons, a tiefling, a fallen angel (that is very canine and feline like), and two creatures/beings that we aren't sure what exactly they are.

- Shay 🐾

We are probably being very dumb right now, but what do you mean? (To Icky/ @leashme )

- Shay

putting this on main actually;

it annoys me to death when folks say stuff like “i’m not a therian, im a [xyz animal]”

because hey that’s what a therian is!

to say you don’t identify as a therian because you just ARE that animal is to say that therians AREN’T really the animal they claim to be. which is so wrong. to say you don’t like the term therian because it’s ‘too human’ is so insensitive.

therians are not necessarily human! someone calling themself a therian in no way makes them human! equating therians with humans is weird!

stop treating us like we are human, stop trying to separate ‘really being an animal’ from being a therian. they are the same thing. you’re not superior or different to us because you “really are that animal”. we all are.

Hello!! Thanks for answering our ask!!

Also, except for the exam thing, mood. We got very little sleep last night, mostly cause we are

Dragon is very happy that you said hello!

Thanks for the suggestion for name inspiration!!

Sorry for the very, very late reblog/reply. This has been sitting in our drafts since we first saw the post (so a long time really, lol)

- Shay (They/it)

Hello!!!! How are you?

We decided to come say hello, lol.

We are plural and have an alter/headmate (we wanna find a different term so badly) that is a dragon, and it wanted to basically have us say hello to a fellow dragon, lol.

Currently, it is just going by a placeholder name of Dragon. Honestly, if you have any name ideas for them, we would have to hear the ideas!

Don't know what else to say, lol.

- Shay (They/it) | Host

- Dragon (It/they) | Dragon doesn't really type/talk very much outside of noises

hi!! i know you! im fine, pretty tired (i only got 5 hours of sleep cause i had an exam earlier today). im going home for the weekend so im gonna try and take a nap on the bus to make up for it.

oh, say hello to Dragon for me! i dont have any name ideas (i mean, my name is Talon which isnt precisely the most exciting name for a dragon), but you could look at Wings of Fire characters for inspiration methinks. theres many cool dragon names in that series, so you could probably find something for your headmate there!

have a great day/night!

Thanks for the reply!

We definitely think of it as better than the "functioning" label system (cause of what that system was originally for) but yeah every system has flaws.

So medium support needs seems to fit us.

As we don't have a job, and don't have a "caretaker". And we could go on but this is the main bits, lol. Basically, we have more support needs than a low support needs being and less support needs than a high support needs being.

- Shay 🐾

Can any being(s) explain exactly what each "level" of support needs mean? (High, medium, and low are the ones we have seen/heard)

Cause we literally aren't sure what we count under.

Like it almost seems like we are low-medium support needs or high-low support needs (like on the lower side of medium or higher side of low).

Does this make any sense?

- Shay 🐾

Realized just a bit ago that it's my/our birthday today (May 25th) from my/our life as Zuki, lol.

- Zuki 🪶 from the ShaySubpack 🐾🪶🩵🖌

Tw/cw: suicide, all caps in parts of our post

Ok, this is a great post, love it, thank you.

BUT PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING; TAG OR ADD THE TRIGGER WARNING FOR SUICIDE!! SOME BEINGS NEED TO BE ABLE TO FILTER POSTS WITH THAT OUT SO PLEASE ACTUALLY FUCKING TAG IT!!

As I said, it's a great post, and we love it, but still, tags of this kind are very important, so please tag any trigger warnings, especially suicide.

- Shay (They/it)

queer people of all kinds. i am looking you in the eyes. do not fucking kill yourself. are you listening to me it will be okay. it will get better. i am shaking you by the shoulders do. not. fucking. do. it. you have so much to keep going for and so many people who love you. the cost of the present will not outweigh the life ahead of you. i love you. chin up or down keep walking you'll get there. we will pull you back up onto your feet should you fall. i love you

Poem number whatever, lol.

Older poem, wrote this a while ago.

Tw: Death, and none others that I can think of.

The Three Phrases

Life is unfair

Time flies

You love and you lose

That's the three phrases

You need to learn

To understand

Life isn't fair

Good people have bad things happen

Bad people have good things happen

Time flies

It feels slow at times

But it flies really fast

You love and you lose

You never know when someone

You love will die

Life is unfair

Time flies

You love and you lose

We'd love to hear more about median plurals.

Cause we are kinda wondering if we (Shay subpack) are a median subpack cause we are technically all parts of Shay.

We are different from our other packmates. They are distinct. They are their own beings in a way that we in the Shay subpack aren't.

We'd just love to hear more about median plurals and their experiences.

- Shay Subpack 🐾🪶🩵🖌