@volpi

@anthropy That's the strategy I'm following here, too.

I don't think about the structure and points ahead of time and just start writing what comes to my mind. It's working surprisingly well so far, I didn't expect that.

I don't plan on picking up writing stories myself, though. Art is more up my alley for this purpose. But I at least want to be able to write about things without giving up halfway through because I had gotten hung up on details and imperfections. If last year taught me anything, it's that just powering through and trying things will lead to improvement, and that's exactly what I'm doing on this account now.

Like I mentioned on my other account, I need a break from art because I've been arting too much these last 3 weeks. That's one reason why I'm now experimenting with writing, but another reason is that I recently was pointed to an ongoing story I ended up liking a lot:
www.royalroad.com/fiction/98840/transliterated-xenofiction-isekai

What makes it so nice to me is that the story uses a very realistic angle. It focuses on struggles and interactions on a more individual level. How not only the humans would react to waking up as animals, but also how they would adapt. How the native inhabitants of the world would handle the situation. The implications of what happened. There's so much going on to keep you invested.

In many other stories, all of this would be glossed over in a prelude leading up to the "real plot". Maybe a threat that will lead to the end of the world if the protagonists don't intervene. You know the drill.
I think it's fine to not have the world end for once.

If this sounds interesting to you, then maybe give it a read!

@aearo @foxovision

You're absolutely right here, wanting to be an animal is the core of it. It's all the things therians and otherkin build around it that I don't identify with and which makes me hesitant to adopt these terms for myself.

Here's a different scenario to get my point across better:
Let's say I'm interested computer hardware and how it works. In this scenario, therians are people who're into software development and otherkin are PC builders (both chosen arbitrarily so this isn't a value statement). At the core of both is still computer hardware, but what they're doing with it isn't necessarily what it means to me. Maybe I'm more interested in the physical mechanisms or the theoretical foundation.

I'm leaving out a lot of detail here. You could, for instance, point out that therianthropy has become way less strict in recent years which should allow me to feel welcome unlike before. I plan to talk about all this in a separate post.

"Volpeon, you've left your account unlocked

"

Don't worry, it's intentional.

Things I'm posting here may end up being more personal just by virtue of being posted to a more obscure account, but in the end the main purpose of this account is being an outlet for posts that don't "belong" on my main; posts I don't mind being readable by anyone all the same.

Alright, let's try a more "free writing" kind of posting. I never did this consciously, but I realize now that this is in fact how most of my longer posts start off.

So, Winter is always a conflicting time for me. It sets me into a mood that's oddly nostalgic in a good way, but at the same time there are also negative feelings coming to the surface. I'm sure many of you can relate, it's just how Winter is for many.

Something that becomes a problem for me during times like these is an unfulfillable desire I've had pretty much my whole life: I want to be an animal rather than a human.
This phenomenon has had quite an impact on my identity, leading to a shitload of reading and researching and trying to find some kind of "answer" for years.
Of course, I also learned about otherkins and therians at some point. Neither felt like the "answer" I was looking for for multiple reasons, and so I also won't use them as labels to describe myself. I don't want this post to become too long, so that's a topic for later.

Some years ago I slowly came to the realization that by looking for an "answer", I had built layers upon layers of subjective interpretations around my experience. I couldn't just "want to be an animal", it had to be some kind of external force that made me feel this way, as if I was "supposed to be" an animal and other related ideas like that. I automatically picked up this kind of language to describe my own experiences and I followed arbitrary self-imposed rules, all in order to convince myself and others of their validity. That I wasn't a "poser". That all of this was "real".

But then I realized what I was doing and peeled all of the layers off until only the truth remained: A part deep inside of me just wants to be an animal, regardless of the overwhelming cons. That's all there is to it and I'm happy to leave it at that.

Unfortunately, this conclusion doesn't fix the negative consequences. Nothing can change the objective reality that I'm a human. There isn't even the faintest glimmer of hope to see this desire fulfilled. It simply won't happen. If this sounds soul-crushing to you, then you'd be absolutely right.
And yet, somehow I'm not ending up in an endless pit of depression. I think it helps a lot that I can pretend to be a dragon on the internet and people will, to some degree, accept it as reality and treat me like one. I go

WAAH, others respond with

. In these short moments, I get to be dragon. It's better than nothing.

Right now, I'm again in a phase where these feelings are affecting me. This time I'm dealing with them by writing about them. It's not the first time I wanted to do this, but it's the first time I'm actually getting a coherent text out of it. Turns out it helps to frame it as "just writing what's going on in my mind" instead of my usual and paralyzing "doing an essay about my identity."

I'm curious how long it takes for someone to discover this account

Not that there's anything on here yet to make it worth following