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.
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.
I think now I can take a break from the wyvern POV. I'm still not sure what to draw with Areon, though. His body makes it feasible to be at my home, but I need to find a plausible situation where you can see more of the POV than just a blurry snoot. And that's difficult because I don't litter my place with mirrors I could of course go with the same pose in my bed, but that's boring
The right one is easy because the toes point upward and only slightly away from the viewer. I also made some adjustments to make it look less rigid and flat. If you look at your hand and curl your fingers, you see that they initially go outward and start to come together towards the end. Applying this to the foot makes it look more flexible.
Coming up with a composition for the Areon drawing is harder than I thought. He may not have wings, but the hunched over posture means his head often gets very close to the reflective surface and then the drawing would end up like these wonky dog photos where their snoot is super large
@catraxx I imagine it works like with our nose, so yeah, filtered. I tried to replicate this effect as well as I could so the snout is there, but it blends into the image
Volpeon Extra
@areon@icy.wyvern.rip
I could of course go with the same pose in my bed, but that's boring