Dragon isekai, mild spoilerI'm curious how the story is going to proceed with him being so large now.
I've never been a fan of huge dragons because to me, it feels like the size creates isolation. Think about how humans and small animals interact — we know they exist, but most of the time that's it. The common way to solve this is the typical trope in anime where large creatures who are going to become persistent members of the main cast assume a "human form" and henceforth can be interacted with like any other human (with small exceptions).
I don't think this is going to happen in this case, though. The author is surprisingly thoughtful in areas that matter to me (like the language barrier and nerfing the "human transformation" skill).
Maybe one day I'll have the confidence to draw not just a comic, but a dragon isekai that works more how I like. My motivation right now is high because the situation of basically everything makes it really tempting to get lost in imagination.
@coffee Hmm... well, I'll grant that a lot of anime is slop, but I still don't feel it's unreasonable to expect characters to make at least somewhat realistic decisions
I want the dragon isekai to be good, but to be honest, it's... eh. I wish they had a better budget to work with, but budget alone can't fix how annoyingly stupid some characters keep acting
Maybe anime isn't the right medium for my personal "ideal dragon isekai". Today the protagonist learned to understand humans, and it just felt too quick and easy. Same as with his evolutions as a whole.
A lot of the time I see someone talk about "gatekeeping", it's used as a way to force themselves into spaces where they don't belong. Not always, but often.
Still liking the dragon isekai. The author set some good priorities you don't tend to see elsewhere, like the communication barrier and not having a human form as a lazy escape hatch. These things are challenging to handle and I appreciate that it's happening for once.
What bothers me, though, is the whole computer RPG stuff going on. The protagonist actually talks about grinding EXP to level up, and just... no. Really not a fan at all.
Copy of a post I made on a forum today. The thread is about "Your needs as a therian".
--
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.
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.
